


The Hazards Of Love

by godeatgod



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Gore, I am sorry if i fuck up any spanish, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Cults, cult abuse, i am going 2 do what i want, i wanted luis to be alive so he is now, slight homophobia, this is a rewrite of the whole ass game but luis is there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-02-18 15:43:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21946294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godeatgod/pseuds/godeatgod
Summary: In a different life your road ends here, but circumstance allows you to live another day. Perhaps you can make up for your mistakes, and perhaps the man who saved you can lead you down the path to something better.
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Luis Sera
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	1. The Bagmans Gambit

**Author's Note:**

> I really really really like Luis and Leon and resident evil s o i decided to rewrite like all of RE 4 so that hes alive and to fix other things i didnt like so here. Leave comments if you like it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And I recall that fall  
> I was working for the government  
> And in a bathroom stall off the National Mall  
> How we kissed so sweetly  
> How could I refuse a favor or two  
> For a trist in the greenery  
> I gave you documents and microfilm, too  
> And from my ten floor tenement  
> Where once our bodies lay  
> How I long to hear you say  
> No, they'll never catch me now

"Leon! I've got it," Luis strolled into the room, showing him the plaga sample, frankly relieved to see Leon still alive, he didn't want to have wasted his own time crawling around the castle he'd already escaped once only to have leon be gone, or worse dead. Leon smiled but his expression changed quickly. 

"Luis!" Leon warned him and Luis whipped around finding himself face to face with Saddler, who was glaring at him with cold rage, and disgust. He backed away as quickly as possible and stumbled a little, falling, as a strange appendage with a sort of sharp boney blade at the end slid its way out from under his cloak and lunged forward directly at luis, all of this happening so fast he had no time to defend himself or react. 

There was a gunshot and a strange hissing sound and the appendage retracted itself, luis managed to pull his own gun out but at that point the danger seemed to have passed. 

"Saddler…" Leon growled.

In the slight scuffle Luis had been just caught off guard enough to drop the sample and the pills he'd been holding so he could grab his gun. He snatched up the pills again but found the sample had rolled too far away and saddler had picked it up. 

"That was meant to kill you...but no matter, i have las plagas sample back, i had no use for you anyways, my boy Salazar will dispose of our american friend here, as for you Luis, Dios tiene misericordia de su alma, you will regret your choice very soon." 

And with that Saddler turned and left the room with a swish of his cloak. 

"You ok?" Leon half jogged over to him and offered his hand.

"I am fine, but Saddler has the sample again." Luis muttered taking Leon's hand and getting to his feet, "damn it. I have to get it back.." 

"C'mon Luis don't run off again," Leon held on to his shoulder, "we can get it back together." 

"Do not worry about it Leon, it's my problem ." Luis shook his head, "you have other things to be worrying about." 

"Ok it's not in my job description sure but i want to help." 

"I do not know…" 

"You need some backup, hell i could use some, we can get Ashley and that sample back a lot faster or at least easier with both of us . We worked pretty well together back in that cabin." Leon insisted, with no hint of recognition about the other events in that cabin. 

"Well yes i.. we uh...worked well together," he cleared his throat, shaking his head a little, "..i suppose, but Leon i have to be honest i...there are many things I was not truthful about." 

"Don't worry about that right now Luis," Leon interrupted. "We'll get plenty of time to talk about it later alright. "

"Well...alright." Luis sighed but nodded. "Thank you, by the way, Saddler would have killed me for sure if you hadn't been here to warn me." 

"Of course Luis. Though I wonder why he didn't just...attack again." Leon frowned but shook his head, "uh not that i want him to, obviosuly but.."

"Saddler does not like to do his own dirty work," Luis shrugged, "I'm surprised he even did that."

"What the hell even was that..tentacle thing? a tail?"

"Ah...i, well i have a theory but it's fairly unpleasant." Luis chuckled dryly not elaborating, "we should look for Ashley yes?" 

Leon, who looked like he was trying to guess what Luis meant, shook his head, "yeah you're right." 

There didn't seem to be many other doors aside from the one Leon must have come from, and the one Luis and Saddler had. They decided to search the room in case she was here and Leon walked down some stairs onto a platform that stood suspended over a hole revealing a view of the downstairs. He looked down and waved over to Luis, who followed him. 

"She's down there," Leon pointed to a wall that Ashley was trapped to, he pulled a rifle off his back and aimed at the restraints, it probably would have done some good to warn Ashley of what he was going to do, since once he fired and broke the restraints she screamed even though Luis assumed she wasn't in any real danger.

"It's ok Ashley," Leon called down to her once she was free.

"A little warning next time might help." She huffed. 

"Sorry, is there anyway you can see to get up here?" 

"Uhmmm…" she looked around seeming lost and then shook her head, "I don't see anywhere."

"Luis do you know-" Leon started to address him but Ashley interrupted.

"Leon! There's more of them!" 

Out of some of the doors downstairs a handful of cultists emerged, some with weapons and one wearing a red cloak and a gold mask, one of those in Saddlers higher court. All of them went to swarm Ashley immediately.

Ashley dodged the grasp of one of the cultists and Leon immediately shot them right after, Luis aimed his own gun at some of the others, trying to find and eliminate the one in the mask, but from his vantage point on the platform it was hard to see where they'd gone. 

However it wasn't too long until all the other cultists had been killed, and Ashley made sure to stay in plain sight of both of them, so eventually the one in the mask must have decided they didn't have much in the way of a choice and ran forward lunging at Ashley, who dodged their advances and was then shot by both Leon and Luis. They fell to the ground their metal helmet clanking loudly against the stone beneath. 

"They probably have a key to that door," Luis called down to her pointing to show her, "I think there's a passage through it that will lead back up here." 

She gave him a thumbs up and bent down to search the corpse for the key, if she was bothered by it she didn't show it other than wiping what was possibly blood off her hands onto their cloak when she found what she needed. 

"Got it! I'll be right there!" She sounded surprisingly chipper as she ran off behind the door. 

"Should we try and meet up with her?" Luis asked Leon as he reloaded his gun and hooked it on his back again, admittedly worried.

"I don't think so, we don't want to get lost or miss her accidentally this place is huge." 

"Hm." 

"She'll be fine. She's pretty smart," Leon assured him, "sure shes a bit of a handful but she's not completely defenseless." 

"Fair enough." Luis was still unsure but Leon's confidence was almost contagious. They both sort of wandered away from the center platform, Leon looking around the room as if little impressed, Luis simply pacing slowly around a small area. 

"I guess it's not later, but.." Luis interrupted to silence with a sigh, Leon turning to look at him his head tilted to the side curiously. "I still really want to apologize for lying before, admittedly I did not trust you, but still." 

"Well...what could you even have lied about?" 

"For one thing, i was never a cop. In fact i was much worse, i worked with Saddler researching las plagas…" Luis barely glanced up at Leon, who looked, disappointed, and confused. 

"Why?" 

"He..he offered me a..job and a place to live slightly outside the village, he offered to help my family. He promised me my research would be used to help those who were sick and dying in from whatever they'd uncovered in the mines. I...I believed him. I figured out at some point, when more people were getting sick and mutating and dying, including myself and my whole family, that I'd only helped him spread it. But..but I didn't know what to do. Id already done so much research i think..i think i was blinded to the fact that id made everything so much worse." Luis looked down one arm crossed over his chest supporting the other that he was resting his cheek on, somehow recounting it made him much sadder. "I never wanted this, i know that doesn't make me any less responsible. But I really never wanted bad things to happen to these people, they were my friends and neighbors…"

"Luis.." he felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched slightly, looking up he saw Leon's expression had softened considerably.

"That's not your fault, he lied and used you. And now you're trying to help me even though you don't have a reason to trust me really. It's gonna be ok, we'll fix this as much as we can but i'm sorry about your family and friends."

"I ...thank you..Leon." Luis' voice faltered, Leon's hand was still on his shoulder and he was barely a few inches away from him, so close in fact he was quite tempted to lean closer and let whatever happened afterwards happen, respressing the warmth that seemed to be creeping into his chest and face.

They were interrupted by a door opening and Ashley peeking around the corner, her face lighting up when she saw them. Leon turned away from Luis and covered half the distance between them quickly.

"Leon!" Ashley ran over to him and hugged him. 

"You did good," Leon smiled and hugged her back patting her head in a sort of familial way. Luis strolled over behind them as casually as he could muster, still keeping a good few feet of distance. 

"Sorry about..before." she half mumbled looking down a little. "Didn't meant to be a nuisance." 

"Hey, no your not, don't worry about it. " Leon waved it away. "Luis is coming with us if that's alright." 

"Yeah Sure," she shrugged and waved at him, he returned the gesture still trying to repress the feelings from just a moment ago. He figured leon must have not felt it, or he was quite good and pretending so. 

"Alright let's figure out where to go next," Leon looked around.

"I believe this hallway here leads back to a way where we can get back to a different place in the castle." Luis explained, "there should be track there." 

Before they could leave there was a ringing and Leon pulled out some sort of device and looked at it frowning before hitting a button.

"Aww... what a touching moment we have here, " a familiar, unwelcome voice of a certain rich brat came from it leading Luis to realize it was some sort of communication device, in his own defence he had little to no experience with such things. 

"All spoiled thanks to your interruption." Leon replied flatly. "Do you need something or are you just trying to piss me off." 

"Oh don't get so cocky Mr. Kennedy, you're just an extra in my script, your biggest part is over." Salazar cackled while Leon looked thoroughly annoyed. 

"Y'know what Salazar? I don't have time for this and I also don't care." Leon said and then he hung up. 

"He will not be pleased with that." Luis shook his head and Leon just scoffed.

"Good. Let's get outta here." 

They left down the hallway and into the next room, beyond it through an arched doorway was the cart and ahead of them was a huge empty pit, deep enough that they couldn't see the bottom, there was a railing and a track with an odd platform that had huge wheels leading upwards over the pit to a higher platform with a door, what was beyond it Luis couldn't say but didn't figure was important.

"There's the cart through that way," Luis pointed it out and Ashley nodded but Leon seemed preoccupied with the platform next to them.

"Hey Leon, it's this way." Ashley pointed while Leon stood off to the side looking at the platform. 

"I wanted to look this way first."He said looking over at her as if remembering she was there.

"Why's that?" Luis prompted a bit confused.

"Well, there's a barrier stopping us from going forward in the caste and i want to see if there's a way to get through it like...i dunno a switch or a key or something this way." Leon explained, "or the other parts to the art piece i think if we put them all back together then maybe there'll be a hint on how to get through" 

"In that case we probably should go see." 

"Yeah but, I dunno that this'll support all three of us," Leon looked it over. "I don't think it's big enough that we can all even fit on it." 

"It doesn't look very sturdy, no." Luis agreed, the pit below the platform looking dark and uninviting. 

"Hm..why don't you two wait here, ill check it out. Keep an eye on her Luis." Leon didn't wait for a reply to his suggestion and stepped on the platform, it creaked oddly and the gear shaped wheels started moving, Luis stayed behind with Ashley as he was taken to a higher platform and disappeared behind a door. 

It was now a bit awkward, Luis sort of leaned against the railing and sighed. He'd never really expected to be alone with Ashley and thus had not thought too much about her. He didn't figure they had much in common, and besides that something from earlier had been bugging him.

"Ashley?" He broke the silence eventually figuring he could at least say something to try and make up for their first encounter. 

"Hm?" 

"I uhm..I figure I should..apologize for our first interaction," he started trying to think of the best way to put it. " I do not know why i thought that was appropriate, but it was ...in very poor taste considering the situation . So I am sorry." 

"Well...i guess i can forgive you. " Ashley shrugged but sort of smirked. "I've heard worse."

"That's, not great, how old are you?" He asked, the thought had never occurred to him before and suddenly worried him. 

"Seventeen."

"Oh..I was under the impression you were...older...not that it makes it alright just...i am sorry." He'd felt bad after whatever had prompted him to speak to her in such a generally obnoxious manner but he certainly felt worse now learning she was literally still a child. He still had no idea why the hell he had tried to hit on her. 

"I've heard worse, at least you apologized." She shrugged, "you don't seem like that bad of a guy, weird but not all bad. So...y'know not so big a deal. " 

"I am surprised you are so forgiving." 

"Eh..i've dated guys who are creepier and they turned out...well...okay bad example but you seem fine. You only tried to ask me out i mean, usually I get a bunch of 'ha ha nice tits' comments so...at least it was, almost, civil. " 

"I will certainly do my best to make up for..that." 

"Here," she held out her hand, "do over? I'm Ashley Graham."

"Luis Sera, it's nice to meet you." It was sort of ridiculous but nice enough nonetheless. They were quiet for a moment but it was less uncomfortable.

"Man this blows." Ashley huffed eventually, having taken a seat on the hard marble floor.

"Not the best of days i assume?" 

"No. It almost beats school, but that's probably just cus of Leon." She shrugged, Luis noted how dirty her sweater was, and that the sleeves had holes and tears in them, her knees were bruised and her socks which he assumed at one point had been up to her knees now were bunched around her ankles and looked just as dirty. Her hands still had dried blood staining them presumably from coughing it up. She certainly looked as though she'd spent some time being thrown around. 

"You have had quite a rough time, very admirable you're still in one piece and decently calm," he pointed out eventually, taking a seat next to her. 

"Sure i guess but you are too." She waved it away but smiled seeming pleased.

"I've lived here my whole life, you on the other hand continue to get kidnapped and experimented with, and you're still here smiling, that's quite impressive señora." 

"Well thanks." She smiled and shrugged before pausing to think for a moment. "Have you really been here your whole life?"

"Sí," he nodded, "but you know it was not always like this. The parasites, the cult activities. no, only a few years ago it was nothing more than a quiet farming village. Salazar's family was still mostly in charge and there were..certain guidelines we were encouraged to follow but there were not nearly as strictly enforced, hell i even managed to quietly get out enough to go to college for a couple years."

"Wow…" Ashley shook her head baffled. "What happened?"

"I don't know all the details, but I came back a couple years ago from college, I was probably twenty-two or so, not too sure what i was going to be doing you know, and it seemed something had changed. I recall hearing about Salazar's father passing and at the time he was too young to be in charge of anything, and too naive to know better so he must have relinquished most of his control to Saddler." 

"Did Saddler just show up one day?" 

"Oh no he was just sort of a strange old man who lived in the church, that church used to be very run down nobody had used it ah...religiously for decades. Not since los illuminatos originally were in charge around here, it is at its core a religion. People still worshiped there but not as much. Either way I suppose he must have smooth talked his way into Salazar respecting him enough to allow him a lot of control. As of now it's very clear Saddler is the one in charge." 

"Geez, this is all kinda crazy." 

"That's a good summary." 

"Did you learn english in college? Everyone else here mostly speaks spanish, except I guess Saddler, the chief guy, and the short one." She asked, "like it makes sense cus we're in spain but.." 

"No i learned it many years ago from my grandfather, he always told me it would be useful. College mostly gave me practice with it. " 

"You must be pretty smart then." 

"Well..id certainly like to think so, hm?" He chuckled a little. 

"I think so. You said you were twenty two a few years ago? How old are you now?" 

"Twenty six," 

"Oh." 

"How old did you think I was?" He asking teasingly not greatly caring. 

"Uh...well not twenty six." She shrugged sheepishly. 

"It's fine, I'm aware of my appearance."

"Your fine just...i dunno didn't seem like you're only twenty six. You seem..older but not in a bad way."

"Well, thank you." He wasn't quite sure how to take that but he decided it was a complement. 

"How old do you think Leon is?" She asked after a moment, not at all obvious to her intentions. 

"Not sure, too old for you though certainly. " 

"Hey i didn't mean it like that." She huffed and shoved him a little, clearly a little embarassed. Luis chuckled a little at her defensivness. 

"I don't blame you, he is pretty. Certainly doesn't look like he works for the government." 

"Sounds like maybe you like him." She gave him a look and he sort of balked. 

"What i can't state facts now?" He joked though it came off just as defensive as she had. 

"Whatever you say, Luis." She replied, pronouncing his name incorrectly but with a tone that felt as though she was doing it on purpose and making fun of him. He had to wonder how he ever thought she was older than she was. 

Before much else could happen there was more creaking and they both looked over and saw Leon coming back on the platform, both of them stood up to greet him. Luis noticing his face and arms looked a lot redder than before and that, as he stepped off the platform closer to them, that he had a strange smell lingering on his clothes and was visibly sweating. 

"Leon there you are, ah why do you smell like sulfur amigo?" 

"Possibly the big lava pit in there," Leon shrugged far too nonchalant, pulling a stone piece shaped like a lion out of his pocket "got this though, so we can get to the rest of the castle. We just need the last piece." 

"The...the what?" Ashley furrowed her brow.

"Lava?"

"I dunno, there was just a room full of lava." Leon shrugged, "no wonder this cult is running out of money." 

"There's no volcanoes here? This castle isn't at the top of a mountain?" Ashley seemed very confused.

"Rich people are weird." Leon responded.

He had a point, and Luis shook his head, he supposed he'd just never found time to explore the entire castle, and frankly that platform didn't look all that safe, but if he though Leon was capable of making something as ridiculous as that up he wouldn't believe him now. 

"Well anyway if that last piece is anywhere than it's not in this part of the castle."

"Oh right!" Ashley reached in a pocket in her skirt and pulled out a similar stone object, this one shaped like a snake, and handed it to him, "I found that while i was trying to get back upstairs." 

"Oh, well good job," Leon smiled, he never smiled very big, but the way his eyes smiled with him made up for it, Luis had noticed before but it kept coming back to him how pretty Leon was.

"Well lets head on back then." 

They wandered back inyo the next room and all settled themselves into the seats of the cart, Luis sitting next to Leon a polite distance away, and Leon reached over and pulled a lever, the doors to the cart closed and it rumbled and creaked to life moving forward, slowly and jerkily at first and smoothing out as it got a little faster. 

"So uh..Luis did you ever find what you were looking for?" Ashley asked him after a moment as they rode forward, pronouncing his name right this time, though somehow when Leon said it wrong he didn't mind nearly as much as perhaps he should. He supposed Leon was just so confident in being wrong he couldn't be bothered to correct him.

"Oh yes right, " Luis reached in his pocket and pulled out the pills, handing them over to Leon, "well i found both things, i lost las plagas sample to Saddler but i still have those, they should help suppress the parasite in your body somewhat so they do not grow nearly as fast. It's not a permanent solution by any means but it should help." 

"Good, good." Leon nodded sharing the pills with Ashley.

"It's not perfect but it should stop you both from coughing up so much blood." He nodded, "I will find a way to help get that parasite out of you if I can."

"I appreciate it Luis." Leon nodded and gently patted his shoulder, it seemed both awkward and comfortable and Luis had no idea what to think or if he was overthinking but before he could reply the cart jerked more and slowed to a stop. 

They got out of the cart and Leon strode over and unlocked the door, leading them all back into the main hallway, where Luis finally realized what Leon had meant about the hallway being blocked as he'd snuck back in through a secret entrance. 

Leon took the stone pieces out of his pocket and placed them in the indents in the wall. Nothing happened at first and luis wondered if anything would until there was a clicking sound and scraping as the wall in front of them slowly lowered itself becoming a floor once again.

"How does anyone get around in here?" Ashley shook her head gesturing with her hands as if baffled and exasperated by the design of the castle. 

"Well..usually this is just a hallway. Hell i didn't know this floor blocked the path like it does now, or that the emblems are the cause." 

"Why would them not being in this art thing make the floor block the way?" Leon frowned. 

"Your guess is as good as mine amigo." 

They moved ahead, the area being blocked off was nothing more than an extension of the already too long hallway, the end of this one however was a huge gold colored door that, when Leon and Luis went to push open, turned out to be quite heavy. Luis expected this of course and knew of the second cart through this door, pretty much exactly like the one before it. For whatever reason short metal gates blocked the area on either side of them despite there being nothing there for them to be guarding. 

This area was much more open, the wall they were facing not a wall at all but several columns holding the ceiling up with open space in between allowing them to see outside at the forest and feel a harshly cold but fairly weak breeze filtering inside. 

"What are you cold?" Ashley nudged Leon, Luis noticing he was shivering a little.

"I had a coat, but I guess those villagers took it. Didn't think I'd need a sweater too" Leon said with a slight shrug. 

"It should be warmer deeper in the castle." Luis pointed out taking a seat in the cart, Leon and Ashley following right after him, taking the seats they'd had before though leon was quite considerably closer this time, just enough that their arms were brushing up against each other.

"Good. Man i'll be glad to get out of this place." Leon closed to door and activated the cart again. Luis and Ashley nodding in agreement as the cart jerked to life and rumbled forward.


	2. Mistral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So we already wrecked the rental car  
> And I’ve already lost my way  
> My feet entombed in this tourist bar  
> For a day, anyway  
> So lay me out on the cobblestone  
> And unfurl this aching jib  
> The streets all built on ancient bones  
> And the crib, are the ribs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To get a lot of the details down for this im replaying 4 again on professional difficulty and im so fucking bad at video games its hilarious so i hope im better at writing than i am at those. if you like it leave comments and such ilu <3

"Well we got a couple of options here." Leon looked around the nicely furnished room, the paintings covered most of the walls and didn't appear to have a common theme tying any of them together. Some were landscapes, others portraits of people Luis was certain Salazar did not know, others were more abstract. He had to assume his late family had decorated the palace despite the unflattering display of the artwork. 

“Honestly I don't know where to go next.”

“Well if we manage to find Salazar we might be able to get him to tell us where Saddler is, but where he's gotten off to i can't say. I'm assuming he's deeper in the castle hiding or...preparing for that ritual he was talking about.” Luis said more musing to himself as he realized the other two had no context for what this ‘ritual’ could be, then again he also wasn't certain, and he didn't want to think too deeply about it. “If he is hiding i suppose it best we search everywhere we can.”

“Yeah that's true. Guess we should just choose a direction and start there.” Leon nodded and promptly led the way to the left of them. Ashley tailing him looking somewhat bored. 

The room they entered was somewhat large all things considered, coats of arms decorating the stone walls with four huge statues of knights that could have easily been three or four meters high scattered oddly about the room. Luis noted four square patterns that lined up with one another on the floor contrasting the tiles. As they walked inside looking around he also noted a closed off gold door decorated with los illuminados symbol that looked as though it could open, and in fact he was sure it was supposed to be open, and that these statues were placed incorrectly in the room, looking up at Leon he could tell they’d both had the same idea.

"Here push these on to those plates on the floor." Leon instructed him and Luis nodded, walking over to one of them. 

“You want help?” Ashley asked him, perhaps just wanting to be useful or feel as though she was doing something. 

“No no it's fine i've got it.” Luis shook his head not wanting her to hurt herself. 

"If you say so." She sort of looked him over as if doubtful he could pull it off but shrugged. 

Luis went to try and push the statue but try as he might it barely moved. He glanced over at Leon who wasn't looking at him, pushing another one of the statues and though he looked to be straining, the statue was making progress. 

"Having trouble?" Ashley asked him after watching him struggle for a minute, a slightly smug look on her face. 

"...perhaps." 

"Here." Ashley walked over and set her hands on the statue and they both gave it a good effort moving it significantly faster than Luis would have on his own. 

Leon had already made progress on his second of the four statues when they'd finished, Luis and Ashley went over to the last one and managed to fit it into place, there was the sound of something turning and creaking and a loud dull clunk and the door ahead of them opened slowly. 

"You're pretty strong." Luis commented, realizing he was a little out of breath and she seemed mostly unbothered. 

"Gotta be, I'm on the cheerleading team back home. " Ashley nodded seeming proud of herself, "course i'm really tired right now." 

"I'm sure that helps out here." Luis nodded pushing back thoughts of him definitely being the weakest link of the three. 

"Good work team." Leon came up and set his hands on their shoulders giving them a slight shake. 

They walked inside the now accessible room beautifully adorned with murals of the virgin Mary and her child sounded by gold trimming, which would have been pleasant if not for the person standing in the middle or the room gazing at the art. He must have heard their footsteps as he chuckled a little.

"When will you learn to give up, Mr. Kennedy? Your efforts surely will be in vain why not accept the inevitable." Salazar shook his head not even turning around to address them head on.

"Fat chance, Salazar." Leon scoffed back stepping forward a little, Salazar chuckled again and turned to face them glancing over the triad but stopping rather abruptly staring at Luis. 

"Luis…" Salazar looked a bit surprised to see him, but quickly regained his composure."How nice of you to come back home. Lord Saddler has missed you."

"I'm sure he has." Luis muttered shuddering a little to himself but maintaining an impassive demeanor. 

"Well unfortunately for all of you the road ends here, make this easy on all of us and just die.” Salazar waved his hand and the door behind them slammed shut all three of them looking around in surprise. 

Salazar cackled obnoxiously and ran out of the room, there was a creaking noise and the sound of stone scraping against stone. A shower of dust clouded the air and they looked up seeing the ceiling now had sharpened spears protruding from it, and it was descending. 

"Shit." Leon muttered, trying to get dust out of his eyes. “I'm gonna get that little bastard..”

The ceiling wasn't moving all that fast, all three of them realized quite quickly, and in another oversight Salazar had not put any kind of lock on the door ahead of them, in fact there was no door at all, just an open door frame. Luis gestured to it wordlessly and they all walked out much calmer. 

"That was stupid." Ashley rolled her eyes, and dusted off her skirt as much as possible. 

"Sí. I believe Salazar should probably get some better traps. No idea why he would try and kill you though Ashley, Saddler would not be happy if he succeeded ." He shook his head looking around the much duller hallway they were now in. 

"He's probably just playing games. Or not thinking i guess" she shrugged and he nodded agreeing that not thinking tended to be what Salazar was good at. 

"How did he get away so fast.." Leon mumbled to himself. Frankly Luis wondered that himself, Salazar's tiny legs didn't seem efficient enough to get away from them but nevertheless he was nowhere to be seen. 

"This is like chasing a toddler." Ashley commented, "but worse, toddlers are cute at least." 

Leon chuckled a little shaking his head as they wandered down the dark hallway whose floor was inexplicably stained with blood. Luis could swear he heard a low rumbling but attempted to calm his nerves telling himself that he was just paranoid and on edge from everything else. As they approached the end of the hallway however, there was more rumbling, and a strange whirring sound.

“What the hell..” Leon looked behind him his eyes suddenly widening as he whipped back around grabbing both Luis and Ashley and shoving them forward through the doorway just as a metal door came crashing down between them.

Before either of them could ask him what had happened it became clear. The stone wall on the other side of the hallway came crumbling down as a huge bizzare vehicle with an archaic drill like front that appeared to have been cobbled together in a dumpster, jerking forward, piloted by two of the cloaked ganados shouting in excitement about crushing and killing Leon, as their death machine rumbled forward alarmingly fast. 

Luis stood and ran to the gate and shot one of the ganados through the metal bars just as Leon also fired. Both of their bodies slumped off of the machine and it subsequently slowed to a stop, one of the spires alarmingly close to Leon. 

“Shit.. you ok?”

“Yeah yeah..” Leon nodded sighing, backing against the door and then turning around to face him. 

“Here let me see if i can open this.” he managed to slip his fingers under the metal door and tried to pull it up, Leon mirrored him and with both their efforts the door creaked as the metal scrapped against the stone. Leon managed to crawl under the door and stand up, mostly unbothered despite the previous situation.

“Well that was close.” Leon looked over the door again and back at Luis and Ashley. 

"What even was that?" Ashley asked, turning towards Luis as if he knew.

"I don't know...perhaps a drill?" Luis shrugged, wishing he had a more satisfactory answer. "maybe it was just for the purpose of crushing us. " 

The room was storage for non perishable food that was wrapped up in sacks and small packages and old wine in two huge barrels though neither had taps to access it, but against one wall was a small shrine almost, decorated of course with the symbol carved into the stone with a small chest placed on the stone ledge jutting out from the wall . Next to it was a door with a huge rusty lock which Leon went to examine while Ashley wandered over to the chest. She fiddled with the clasp opening it and pulled out some object looking it over.

"What is it?" Luis looked over her shoulder.

"Some sorta cup? I dunno but it looks pretty.” Ashley shrugged showing him the decorative gold goblet with a small portrait of a woman wearing a crown, seeming to decide to herself to hold onto it. “Might as well take a souvenir.” Luis nodded and turned to Leon again. 

“So, What are we going to do with the door amigo?” 

“This.” Leon said aiming his pistol at the lock and firing, for whatever reason it worked and the lock fell to the ground in pieces. 

“Couldn't you have just picked the lock?” Ashley asked half sarcastically, Leon scoffed and walked through the door.

“Takes less time this way.”

“Yeah ok.” she rolled her eyes as they entered the same room with the knight statues from before, except one of them was knocked over onto the floor in thousands of little pieces. Luis guessed that was why the door had shut behind them but was unnerved by the idea that Salazar had something that could do this under his command. 

"What do you think did this?" Leon asked, kicking some of the remains of the statue.

"Perhaps a verdugo...but i don't know if they're that strong..." he murmured, "lets keep going." 

The other two nodded soberly and they headed back into the room they had started in. All wordlessly deciding to go through the other room instead of going on ahead.

“Y'know i kinda thought you'd know your way around this place.” Ashley commented, maybe not meaning to sound as passive aggressive as she did.

“I know my way around some places here but i wasn't allowed this far usually, Salazar isn't that fond of...people like me. Besides I've mostly lived on an island a little ways off the coast of the lake for the past few years.” 

They went down the hall into an open room that seemed to be for discussions of some kind with a small table in the center and the windows open letting the chilled air and the remnants of rain from before dripping onto the carpet and stone. There was a letter on the table that Luis picked up, briefly scanned over, and crumpled in his hands shaking his head when Leon gave him a curious look, head tilted to the side. It was just Salazar expressing his frustration that they had yet to catch the three of them, and his slight disappointment that Saddler had to get involved. It wasn't evident in his exact words but Luis knew Salazar and Saddler well enough to know their dynamic was based on Salazar's desire to prove himself. The only thing this note did tell him was that Salazar must have been close, thus he led the way forward. 

Just beyond that room was a much more elegant hallway, carpeted in red with gold along the walls that genuinely made the area feel as though it belonged to royalty. Ahead there was a statue of a sleeping lion and a sharp left turn.

“Don't think they let you in here huh?” Ashley commented looking around seeming impressed. 

“No they did not. Quite beautiful all things considered.” Luis looked around as well.

"Not that i'd wanna live here but it's really nice."

"You live in the white house Ashley." Leon pointed out.

"Yeah but i don't know, it kind of gets boring after the first year. Plus it's not like I can really have friends over."

"Ah that probably sucks." 

"I guess it's not that bad i don't really have a lot of friends anyway, people only wanna hang out because my dad is the president." 

"Well...hey i think you're pretty great." Leon shrugged a little, seeming unsure of what to say exactly. 

"That's nice Leon but that's also the only reason we're 'hanging out' too." Ashley shook her head but she smiled a little.

"Well sure but…" Leon trailed off and turned the corner, which was mostly the same except for the suits of armour lining the walls, Luis sort of wondered how a man so well trained as far as weaponry and fighting could be as awkward as he was on occasion. 

As they continued Luis noticed some of the knights were positioned in poses that looked as though they were about to attack and something told him that wasn't just for show, he kept eyeing them and something nagged at him about the last one on the left at the end of the hall. 

"Hold on…" Luis held his arm out in front of the other two stepping forward briefly and then backing away as the suit of armor creaked and lurched forward slamming the axe into the floor right where they'd been standing and then promptly falling apart. 

"Oh what the hell." Ashley muttered visibly a bit startled. 

"I suppose i'm sorry about the better traps comment earlier." Luis muttered walking ahead tentatively before determining that there weren't any more of them. The end of the hall had an identical lion statue to the one before and to the right was another room.

"Glad i convinced you to come with us." Leon set a hand on his shoulder and shook it a little before going to examine the room, Luis suddenly feeling oddly giddy at the slight praise but repressing it . 

The circular room ahead had similar coats of arms on the walls and a stained glass ceiling letting some weak light into the room, there was a decorative centerpiece in the middle of the room but otherwise nothing else. No door and as far as Luis knew no trap door or secret exit. Surprisingly Leon walked forward. 

"It's a dead end Leon." Ashley said, sounding confused. 

"One second." Leon wandered inside the room and examined the centerpiece, there appeared to be something encased inside it, but Luis wasn't sure if it was of any use. Ashley kept looking around seeming a bit unnerved by the statues, one arm halfway reaching out to him as though wanting to hold onto someone and he was debating offering it to her or not. 

"Hey Luis." Leon called him over as he squinted at something, Luis entered the room walking up to the centerpiece if only to humor him to find a strange glass case holding what he guessed was some sort of decorative goblet. Around the gold trimming of the case was some sort of warning.

"What's that say?" Leon pointed at the words etched into the case as Luis realized Leon knew very little, if any, spanish. 

"Hm. 'May the wrath of evil befall the one who disturbs this holy grail.' Whatever that means." 

Leon seemed to consider this for a moment but then shrugged and opened the case picking up the grail anyways, looking it over as it looked to be a partner to the grail Ashley had picked up earlier. Before he could say anything else about it there was a loud metal clunk.

"Leon!" Ashley called over to him, now from behind a door consisting of metal bars.

The discolored sections of the walls that appeared to be stylistically showing off decorative animal heads rotated and revealed four suits of armor, which immediately began drawing their weapons very unlike most suits of armor. Three of them readied their axes and one their sword and stomped forward. 

"Shit, " Luis had drawn his gun but had no idea if that would actually do any good against these things. Leon had done the same, dropping the grail on the floor with a clattering that was drowned out by the painfully loud creaking of metal on metal. They tried it but as expected their bullets did nothing to deter the knights.

Luis was almost at a loss for what to do, him and Leon kept backing away and dodging when the knights would swing but the room wasn't that big and they couldn't do it forever while the knights very clearly could. One of them awung it's axe and only narrowly missed Luis but caught him off guard enough to fall, it raised it's weapon to hit him again and Luis backed away as quickly as he could still on the floor. He felt something brush his arm and saw it was the goblet and on a whim he grabbed it sat up and threw it as hard as he could. Luck must have been in his side this time as it landed square in it's head knocking it off balance and It fell to its knees, it's helmet came off, a pus filled mound of flesh, tendrils, and an eye crawled out of the neck as the knight attempted to stand, Luis grabbed his gun and shot at it twice and it screeched and burst splattering gore all over the floor, the rest of the suit falling to the ground with a crash. 

He had no time to catch his breath, standing and looking around for Leon, who was still ducking and dodging but clearly getting tired as he stumbled a few times. Luis did his best to think quickly. 

Luis grabbed the axe from the knight he'd killed off the floor and attempted to drag it over to where the other three had mostly cornered Leon. He couldn't fully lift and carry it but didn't have a better idea. 

He summoned as much strength as he could, seeing two of the knights lift their weapons to attack whilst the other was a second away from slicing Leon in half, lifting and half throwing the axe at them. It hit one of them in the hip knocking it sideways and the combination of it and the axe still falling knocked over the other two, a deafening crash echoed in the room and all three of their helmets came off, the grotesque tendrils, eyes and flesh crawled out of the necks. The knights attempted to stand but Luis had already pulled his gun out and fired at each parasite. One shrieked, one exploded, puss and blood staining the floor, and the other simply lay still but they were all dead. 

"Jesus…" Leon muttered after a moment of silence between them with the echo of the mental still ringing in their ears, their breathing rattling against their chests not unlike the armour on the ground, and Luis looked over at him, standing once again, gun drawn, and he was trembling slightly. 

"Thanks, saved my ass there."

"Of course." Luis nodded, putting his gun away.

"I figured the ones in the hallway were just traps but...did they just put some of those ganado guys in there?" Leon asked him kicking at the metal on the floor.

"I believe they used to be security for the perimeter of the castle, i suppose Salazar must have thought they were better used here." 

"Then this must be important." Leon nodded picking up the grail again and shaking it slightly. It was slightly dented but otherwise fine.

“Are you two ok?” Ashley called over to them, Luis honestly having forgotten about her. 

“Yeah we're fine i think. How’re we gonna get out of here?” Leon turned to him after addressing her.

Luis looked around thinking and got an idea, picking up one of the helmets of the knights with the least amount of meat all over it he placed it into the gold case, he heard a soft click and rumbling as the iron gate opened itself again. 

“Man you're smart.” Leon smiled a little and turned heading back to Ashley before Luis could stammer something about just knowing the general idea of how Salazar’s traps worked.

“So what now?” Ashley asked, “both those ways are dead ends and we haven't found him.”

"Well we have two of these cup things, and no idea where Salazar went so i suppose the best way is forward.” Leon sort of shrugged and Luis nodded in agreement. 

They turned back through the few rooms they'd been in and as they headed forward into a long hallway with statues lining the walls. Nothing seemed amiss until Luis noticed what he thought was movement from far ahead down the hallway and then some vague shouting.

An arrow nearly missed Luis' arm, and both him and Leon stood in front of Ashley aiming their weapons at what Luis could see of the movement, a few ganados ran forward but Luis was trying to focus enough to find the ones with the arrows as they posed a more serious threat at the moment, but unfortunately, Luis was no marksman, and had trouble seeing that far ahead much less aiming. 

“Ashley, hide.” Leon muttered and she ran and crouched behind one of the statues closest to them. Leon ran off ahead and Luis followed.

Leon fired at a few of them, mainly the ones in front of him, and Luis managed to aim and take out one of the archers, they slumped down from the statue they were perched on falling on their neck painfully. Luis turned around as a ganado reached for his throat and he kicked them away and they stumbled onto the ground, Luis shot him in the leg but was grabbed from behind by someone else. He writhed in their grip and stepped back slamming them into the wall, whipping around when their grip loosened and finishing them off.

When he located Leon he found him standing over a few bodies looking around for more the one Luis had disabled before standing and trying to hobble forward at them undeterred by the bullet wound in his shin and Leon walked up and did him the favor of putting the barrel to his forehead. Luis flinched when the gun went off and the ganado collapsed on the ground. 

“Guess that's the last of them.” Leon said a little blandly turning to him, face blank for a moment but his expression shifted back to normal soon after. “Hey Ashley it's all clear.” he called to her and wandered over to the other side of the room as she jogged over, gingerly stepping over the bodies when she caught up to Luis. ahead of them was a doorway with two statues on either side of it. Leon rattled the door but it didn't open and looked around frowning.

“Locked. Of course.”

“Hmm… wait a moment” Luis looked over two statues, one of a man and another of a woman both wearing robes and crowns leading Luis to believe they were meant to be king and queen. He reached over and gently took the grail from Leon and looking it over again finding a similar portrait of a man like the one of the woman in Ashleys cup. He set it in the king's hand and felt it dip down like the trap in the circular room. Leon seemed to have caught on.

“Ashley where's that other one?” he asked her and she pulled it out of her pockets, Luis wondered briefly how deep those pockets even were, and ran over placing it on the statue and with nothing more than a loud echoing click the door seemed to be unlocked, as Luis was able to open it.

The next hallway was very much like the last one but a bit more decrepit. The windows were open and some were cracked and broken with glass littering the old, muddy carpet. The main difference was the foreboding atmosphere and the rumbling of thunder Luis could hear in the distance.

"How many fucking hallways are there in this place." Ashley huffed crossing her arms and her eyes shifted from one of them to the other as both Leon and Luis had looked back at her surprised. "What? There's a lot. It's getting ridiculous." 

"You got a point." Leon shook his head, clearly smiling a little. "Once we get out of here we can find Saddler, get that sample back and go home." 

Luis didn't say anything but realized he was not included in that after a moment more of walking, of course not, his home was here. Then again, what kind of home even was this. He tried not to think about it, it didn't matter right now anyways.

They had to survive all this first.


	3. Our Lady Of Sorrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [We could be perfect one last night  
> And die like star-crossed lovers when we fight  
> And we can settle this affair  
> If you would shed your yellow  
> Take my hand and then  
> We'll solve the mystery of laceration gravity  
> This riddle of revenge]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have another project relating to this fic that i might start uploading too but ive been a little distracted doing that. quarantine got me playing all these games so i might as well try and actually write some lmao  
>  anyways leave comments and such if you like it, i hope you're all staying safe and keeping yourselves healthy both mentally and physically ilu <3

"Of course…" Luis muttered looking up at the huge nest as it somewhat pulsated, looking like a tumor attached to the otherwise romantically tragic ruins of what Luis was almost certain used to be a ballroom. He'd noticed it the moment they'd walked in, that and the cold eminanting from the walls. Above them this disgusting nest and below them a chasm. Nowhere else to go but through. 

"What is it?"

"Novistadors."

"Those stupid bugs right? Great, exactly what i wanted." Leon huffed shaking his head to get his bangs out of his face. It occured to Luis that Leon's hair really seemed like it would get in his way, not that it didn't look really good on him, just that it was impractical for someone in his line of work. He tried to refocus his attention to the nest of novistadors.There didn't seem to be any of them out, leading Luis to hope that they were sleeping or hiding from the weather and perhaps wouldn't bother them if they were quiet. 

"if we walk very quietly maybe they won't notice us?" He offered the idea to Leon, keeping his voice low, Leon didn't take much time to consider it and nodded, but Luis figured there weren't many other options. 

They walked forward softly, so much so that Luis had a hard time hearing their footsteps despite being right next to them and despite how large and echoing the room was. He tried not to look over the edge of the platform they had to walk on, unfortunately right under the nest. There seemed to be a dark pit right under them which he was sure he could see the bottom of if he dared to look closer. He couldn't help the desire to whip around every few seconds to make sure they weren't being followed well aware the novistadors could become translucent, and he couldn't tell if his shivering was out of fear or the cold that blew in from the windows. 

He could hear clicking and hissing but when he looked around he saw nothing, the anxiety in his stomach desperate to convince him they were in danger, he was sure that was the case but his eyes wouldn't confirm it for him no matter what he did. He tried to force his attention forward, but of course his instinct had to be right. 

More hissing and clicking and the scuttling of wings and suddenly a swarm of the novistadors descended from the nest diving straight at the three of them, Luis and Leon drew guns but one spat acid at Leon who dodged out of the way, and another grabbed Ashley who screamed and tried to kick it off to no avail as it lifted her and began flying away. 

Luis went to shoot at the one grabbing Ashley as it attempted to drag her off but felt a weight on his back gripping his shoulders so he couldn't aim, another one landed in front of him and started hissing and spitting. Before he could throw it off, his shoulder was suddenly in a lot of pain as it must have spat acid that was burning through his clothes and boiling his skin. He cried out and tried to throw the creature off himself but to no avail, the one in front of him grabbed his arms and started to spit up as well, acid dripping from it's horrible bug mouth and sizzling when it hit the ground as all of its glowing eyes seemed to stare straight through him.

A shot rang out and the weight on Luis' shoulder was relieved and he managed to kick the other novistator off him and shoot it between the eyes as it screeched and collapsed almost dramatically. 

Leon had, as he often did, had the better reflexes, and it seemed that the rest of the novistadors had flown off after the shots, but Ashley was gone. 

"You ok?" Leon ran over to him, kicking the corpse of a novistador as he did.

"Damn it…" Luis muttered holding onto his arm, "I tried to shoot but..I'm sorry Leon..." 

"Hey don't worry about it, I couldn't have gotten her down anyways, i would have risked shooting her or she would have fallen into that pit. Especially since that Damn bug knocked my rifle into the hole there" Leon assured him holding his arm gently. "We can get her back again, how's your shoulder, I saw that thing throw up on you." 

"Hurts. But I'll live." Luis sighed and grimaced, the pain seemed to be getting worse, still burning and blistering, but he didn't want to admit it. 

"Here, let me help." Leon led him to some rocks and sat down with him, pulling some supplies out of a pocket. Luis conceded to let him do it as the pain was making it hard to even think. Leon reached into one of his side pouches and Luis decided it would probably be easier on him if the leather vest he'd been wearing was out of the way, not to mention he was tired of it and it now had a decent sized hole from the acid, so he unbuttoned and pulled it off best as he could despite the pain. 

"Well it looks kinda bad but not the worst, it'll probably blister some. I think your vest there stopped a lot of it from reaching your skin. " Leon held some cloth that must have had some medicine on it to his shoulder, the pain began subsiding some after a minute as he did so and Luis was glad Leon seemed to care. That said he still felt guilty. 

"How's that?"

"That does feel better but this is still a bit of a waste of time, I told you I would slow you down." 

"Oh come on we can't get Ashley back if one of us is hurt. " Leon shook his head. "Besides I'd rather have the company, and you're not slowing me down. If it hadn't been you it probably would have been me." 

"I suppose so." 

"You're doing really good for a guy who just happens to live around here y'know. You can hold your own, those bugs just suck. You helped us a lot before now too." 

"You're very nice Leon. " despite his best efforts Leon was making him feel a bit better and he smiled a little.

"Well...if you're alright i guess we better go get her.." Leon stood and sighed, "do you uh, want that back?" He gestured to the discarded vest.

"Ah it's pretty well ruined, plus if Saddler finds it maybe he'll think I died. I never liked it much anyways, given the choice i wouldn't dress like this." 

"Yeah I sure hope not." If Leon's teasing was meant to lighten the mood, it sort of worked at least, Luis couldn't help but smile lightly. He got to his feet as well and glanced around, noticing both a bridge and a little ways away a lever presumably that would lower the bridge and he pointed these out to Leon with his left arm as the burn was all down his right shoulder. 

They headed over to it and Leon pulled the lever once they reached it. The bridge started to descend and made it about halfway before stopping, the chain holding it was far too short to let it fall as it was supposed to. 

"Well that's not well designed is it." Luis sighed.

"I got it." Leon nodded pointing his gun at the clasps chaining the bridge to the wall and firing twice, the clasps coming undone and the bridge creaking and falling into place. 

"Is that your solution to everything?"

"I mean, it usually works." 

"Can't argue with that then." 

They headed across the bridge and through a door, Luis quite glad to be out of that area and into a room that didn't look as treacherous to be in. He couldn't help the worry for Ashley's safety, he assumed the novistadors had grabbed her under order and she wouldn't be killed but he didn't know what exactly Salazar had wanted her for. He knew of one possible ritual, but the details were slightly fuzzy as it had happened years ago and what he did know was so viscerally unpleasant he didn't want to think about it. He didn't feel like voicing this outloud to Leon assuming he was concerned as well but keeping his head about him, and merely did his best to keep up with him. 

Once out of the short hallway they found themselves outside, a bridge just ahead leading to the clock tower, just adjacent to that another tower that Luis figured Salazar might have run to hide in. Hopefully Ashley was there as well.

Leon stopped briefly and pulled up his phone like device which was buzzing again softly, he frowned and answered it, not making it loud enough for Luis to hear this time. His brow became more furrowed and at one point he simply rolled his eyes and hung up the device shaking his head.

“Salazar?”

“Yeah it's nothing important. He's really getting on my nerves though.”

“Yes well that's what he's best at.” 

“Least you're cool.” Leon said absently as he turned and kept walking and Luis just stood there for half a second before shaking himself, Leon certainly was a friendly person. 

They kept walking, Luis thinking and wondering where the ganado were as Salazar would undoubtedly not want to be interrupted, in fact it was almost eerily quiet til they got about halfway across the bridge.

Leon suddenly grabbed him by the waist and yanked him forward and there was a huge cloud of smoke and the smell of ashes filling their lungs and stinging their eyes. Luis looked around as best as he could through watering eyes, and saw there was a group of ganado with a catapult on top of the castle they were trying to get to.

"Oh Jesus." Leon coughed squinting and trying to get the ash out of his eyes. Luis was unable to respond as he was coughing as well. 

"Come on they won't hit the clock tower." He managed to choke out after a moment he could see more flame in the distance and figured they were reloading their catapult. Leon nodded and they managed to finish crossing the bridge before a second and third ball of fire were flung through the air like some kind of ominous shooting star. 

They ran to the end of the bridge and Leon tried to open the door which was nailed shut, of course, Luis pointed up at the stairs on the side, trying to recall if he'd been here but thinking there was some vague memory in the back of his mind, about needing to go inside the building to get further. Leon nodded and the two of them headed up slowly. 

Luis heard some shouting of the cultists who had spotted them and were pointing out to one another where Leon and Luis were walking. Luis reached over and tried to alert Leon to this by touching his shoulder, evidently this wasn't necessary as two of them rounded the corner and shouted, though Luis didn't know to who as he didn't see anyone else, Leon dodged and Luis flattened himself against the wall as one of them threw a scythe at them. 

“Get them!” one shouted as they both lunged forward, one grabbing at Leon and the other focusing on Luis, gripping his shirt and yanking him forward and bashing their fist against his skull hard, Luis grunting, dizzy but managing to knee them in the side and push the cultist off of him and they stumbled and fell off of the stairs, hitting their head and pluminting off into the deep cavern below. He looked around for Leon only to see him crouching and grabbing the other cultist by the middle and lunging backwards effectively suplexing them hard enough to snap their neck. They went limp on the ground and Leon jumped up from his position on his back. He was breathing hard, flushed but otherwise quite casual about this. 

“Well i was going to ask if you're alright but..” Luis looked down at the body whose skull was split, eyes, no longer glowing, wide in surprise. He sort of glanced at Leons legs which were covered by his comfortable cargo type pants but it was clear they fit a bit snugly around his thighs. He shook the thought from his mind and made eye contact instead. 

“Hey don't worry about me.” Leon smiled. Before there was any more conversation Luis noticed the fire over on the catapults and walked over leading Leon with his arm hovering over his shoulder but not touching him, to the door on the side of the building. The door was huge and heavy and they both had to push it to get inside but did manage to force it open. The inside of the tower was huge, stairs and ladders spiraling upwards to the tower, and full of crates, some with a handful of medicinal herbs and some with bits of ammo lying on top of them, Leon wandered over there and picked through what he could find and Luis looked around trying to see where the two of them could go next. Trying to rack his brain for what to do but his memory was failing him regarding all this, he guessed the infection had really messed with his head. 

“Well what’re we supposed to do?”

“..i don't really remember but perhaps we’ll find something at the top?”

“Great...gotta love climbing all this. I don't have any better ideas so we might as well.” Leon shook his head and they began scaling the stairs and then the ladders leading up to to the top of the clocktower. Luis didn't follow behind him up the ladders on purpose, but it was what it was, and he sort of just tried to avoid staring. Tried at least.

They crawled to the top of the clocktower and Luis looked around at the exposed gears that sort of seemed like the skeleton of the tower. All the gears very old and rusted as nobody really took much care of it, most of the ganado were more directed to maintain upkeep of the areas Salazar frequented and spent significant time in. Usually however, he was pretty sure the gears moved. There was a large lever just across from them and they went over to investigate it. Leon grabbed it and pulled it, looking up as the tower creaked but there was a cloud of dust and strained whirring noises. 

"Shit it's not working…” Leon furrowed his brow. He turned back to the lever and looked around trying to see he guessed if there was a solution. Luis walked closer to the metal railing and he noticed a few feet up that there were what appeared to be short wooden beams wedged in between the gears. He glanced around and pinpointed two other beams and tried to think of what to do. 

Luis, with only one idea, stepped over the railing and inched closer to the gears, immediately realizing this was a poor decision as he started shaking the second he looked down and realized how high up he was and how thin the metal gears were. Still he couldn't back down now, Leon hadn't noticed him climb over but would if he went back. He began maneuvering himself through the gears as best as he could, wincing when it aggravated his burned shoulder, he grasped one of the wooden planks and nearly lost his balance when he tried to pull it out but steadied himself on one of the cogs, heart thumping against his chest.

With one of them free he looked around to find the others. He wiggled down through a hole in the gears to reach another blockage, out of Leons line of sight and promptly heard his name when he tried to grab at the block. 

"Luis? Luis where…"

"One moment." He called back to him straining a little to reach but managing to grasp it and pull it out. He could hear the gears straining against the last of the pieces realizing he'd have to be quite fast to get out of there once he pulled it free. 

"Luis what are you doing." Leon called out once he spotted him among the gears, sounding somewhat agitated. 

"Fixing it, hold on dear." He said sort of absently, luckily the last one was close to the railing so he could get back to safety quickly before he fell and was crushed between the gears. Holding onto one of the metal bars he reached over and struggled with it but managed to get it loose. The gears immediately creaked and began turning, nearly catching him off balance and would have if he had not been holding onto the metal bar despite it starting to rotate. He felt a trembling and he wondered fleetingly if the whole damn building moved. After a moment however it stopped, so He reached over to another bar and then managed to grab the railing, feeling a hand on his arm half a second later. 

"Jesus christ, You got a death wish?" Leon scolded him, grabbing him around the middle and pulling him back over the rails and to safety. 

"Maybe." Luis shrugged as casually as he could muster, "it's working now at least." 

“Yeah sure but... still.” Leon shook his head, setting him down and glancing up at the cogs that churned and clunked against each other. 

“I'd say i handled it fine, lindo.” Luis walked down the stairs so he couldn't be seen being so nervous addressing him with a name like that, though he guessed, accurately, Leon hadn't the faintest idea what it meant.

“You sure did.” Leon chuckled, “you think that did something?”

“It sure felt like it did, no clue why but there's nothing else to do up there anyways.” Luis came to the first of the ladders and gestured to it for Leon to go first, not really trying to stare at him the whole time and avoiding the temptation. 

They reached the bottom of the tower and headed out the same door to find that the bridge had rearranged itself to be facing the tower diagonal to the one they'd left. 

“Well what do you know, it worked.” Leon gestured vaguely, “this place is nuts.”

“It certainly is.” Luis muttered, Leons slight baffled amazement made this all alot more bearable to deal with but even still he'd almost forgotten how stupid everything was now. Not unlike whimsical fairy tales he might have read in childhood except with very serious, borderline horrific origins. His life felt like a goddamn joke, and he wasn't laughing. 

They began to cross the bridge, but of course nothing had to be easy. Shouting could be heard once more before A group of seven to nine cultists emerged from the castle doors, a lot of them wearing the gold masks that signified a certain rank in the church, and one with a long dark red robe and an animal’s skull fitted over their face. Luis didn't like the look of this group, or their collection of scythes, crossbows, and morning stars, or the fact that they were severely outnumbered. 

Leon reacted first, grabbing his arm and diving behind a crate on their side of the bridge pulling out a grenade from his belt. 

“Don't worry i got it. Cover your ears, and... don't look.” he muttered, his face going just as blank as it had before in the castle; different than his usual expression which wasn't all that expressive, a scary mannequin like mask with none of the warmth or calming demeanor he had before. Luis did what he said covering his ears and staying behind the crate, still hearing muffled shouting and then after several seconds, the explosion. He didn't want to look up, having a pretty good idea of what he would see if he did, he realized he was shaking a little but wasn't certain why. Doubts and slight realizations slipping past the defenses in his mind.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked to see Leon, his expression was warm and calm again.

“You ok?”

“Yes i'm fine. I didn't realize you had those.” he sort of glanced at his belt but stood up as though nothing had happened. 

“Yeah well, i don't like to use them if i can help it, it's pretty brutal, not to mention dangerous.” Leon frowned a little but otherwise seemed calm. “C'mon let's go.” Luis nodded and stood, seeing the smoke rising from a few meters away and trying to keep himself calm. 

“Be careful the bridge might have some missing parts.” Leon said as they walked across, Luis noticed the pile of gore and varius smoking piles of robes and masks and weapons. He seriously felt like vomiting while looking at this, the shaking in his hands getting worse the closer he got to it. He couldn't get over the fact that these people were dead, he wondered if he knew any of them before, he kind of figured he might've at least been aware of who they were at one point, but it didn't matter now as they were leaving, it almost felt surreal to walk past all this calmly as if it were normal scenery. Leon seemed unaware of it. 

He really couldn't handle thinking about it anymore. Push it back, that's all he could do, shove it down. Don't think about it. Don't let it hurt you, don't let it overwhelm you. Just keep walking.

They pushed the door open and walked into a large grand hallway, Luis was just trying to breathe but as they closed the door he realized that they were trapped with the distinctive snarling of a beast that suddenly viscerally brought him back to a dark, damp, and filthy room. He pushed it back again. 

Two of the garradors paced the hall, and Luis shuddered knowing they could hear just about anything, feeling a pit of either guilt or fear in his stomach as he looked at their marred faces, dried blood on their infected eyes crudely sewn shut, and bodies deformed by the weight of the metal equipment. Helmet silencing them from speaking in anything but grunts and snarls their only defence, the huge claws on the end of their hands. They were here to protect Salazar but they didn't even know that, they didn't know anything anymore just the darkness they were shrouded in, violence they inflicted out of fear and rage, and the constant pain they had to be in due to their situation.

He saw Leon go to say something and Luis quickly placed his hand over his mouth, shushing him, and gesturing to his ears to indicate that the garradors could hear anything they did. Leon nodded and looked around while Luis kept a wary eye on the garradors praying that they would stay further up down the hallway away from them. 

They both slowly walked forward trying to make in between the two of them, silently as possible. The monsters seemed to not be able to hear them, Luis didn't even dare breathe. 

Out of seemingly nowhere one of the garradors whipped around and it's arm smacked Luis’, and it snarled, alerting the other one as well. Both of them retreated back to the other end of the room as the garradors seemed to be trying to locate the disturbance. Both Leon and Luis were backed against the doors and Leon pulled out his handgun sighing and gesturing to Luis, something along the lines of unfortunately having to kill the monsters and Luis nodded. He gestured to his own back hoping to indicate the creature's weakness, and Leon seemed to understand. 

Leon ran forward through the two monsters both of them whipping around as if they could feel him next to them, he kicked over a table to make more noise and seemingly to attract them to him. Luis realized he was trying to distract them so Luis could hit them. Leon ran back closer to him while the monsters slashed wildly trying to hit him, and aimed at the the garrador.

Luis aimed himself, it was perfect, too perfect even. The monster was positioned just so if he didn't fuck it up, it would probably die. All he had to do was shoot. He took a deep breath and fired.

He missed. Of course he fucking missed. 

The garrador snarled at the sound and charged Luis who froze, unable to react in time. He felt a hand on his arm yanking him to the side, but the edge of the monster's claws hit the side of his arm slicing some of his shirt and into his arm. It had charged the wall once it missed him and smacked it's head against the stone very hard, it continued groaning while stumbling around dazed. 

“Lu-” Leon started but Luis snapped himself out of his frozen stupor, possibly helped by the burning pain in his arm, and covered his mouth again. Shaking his head to indicate he was fine. Unfortunately for them either the other garrador had heard the gun, or Leon, or could smell the blood leaking down Luis’ arm and pooling onto the floor, and charged from the other side of the room. Luis shoved Leon off of him out of the way of the monster and ducked. It got its clawed hands stuck in the wall right above his head, there was blood leaking all down it's stomach and chest, desperately trying to pull it's hands out of the wall. Luis swallowed, rolled out from under it, and stood aiming the gun at the mound of parasite on it's back, steadying his hand as much as he could and fired three times as this monster screamed in agony. 

Leon must have taken some cue from what Luis was doing, Luis saw him dodging around the other garrador whistling at it to distract it from the gunfire on the other side of the room, and once he was behind it he lunged forward plunging his knife into it's parasite as it screamed and collapsed onto the floor. Leon made it a point to crouch over the monster and rip the parasite out of it's back, even as the screaming got worse and worse. Eventually the monsters screeching died down into what sounded like half sobs until it stopped completely. 

It was over, the puss and blood leaking out of the monsters back seemed endless and Luis just stared at the monster, the monster he'd made, in front of him feeling oddly numb. 

Leon walked over to him but Luis didn't really react, hardly even noticing the cuts on his arm, even despite the fact that both arms were now both injured. 

“Hey, are you still bleeding?”

“Hm? Oh…” he looked at the wound but it didn't seem too bad, there was dried blood all down his arm and staining his shirt but it didn't seem to be bleeding anymore. “No it's fine.” 

"Good. good. Well I'd say we showed them but i don't think they saw what we did." Leon joked terribly but he frowned when he saw Luis' expression.

“Are you ok?”

“....I'm fine.” Luis said softly, but there was a sort of hollow pit in his stomach and his hands were still fucking shaking. 

“Do you..need a minute or something?” 

“No no that's…” he almost said something about it being a waste of time but shook his head, “i'll be alright, let's get Ashley.”

“Well..alright then.” Leon frowned but shook his head and gently set his hand on his uninjured shoulder leading him away from the corpse gently as though he didn't believe Luis, and that given the opportunity Luis would simply stand here forever. 

Luis did what he did best and tried to move on, keeping himself composed as they headed through another hallway. Reminding himself that he had to help get Ashley out of Salazar’s custody, and get the sample back from Saddler. If he stayed focused he wouldn't be overcome with what had happened. 

“I think this is the throne room.” he said quietly once they’d reached the large ornate door on the other side of the hall, “if he's not here i don't know where he'd be.” Leon nodded and they both subconsciously set their hands on the door and leaned to push it open. 

The throne room was as nice as the rest of the palace, ruined just as easily with Salazar’s presence sitting at his little throne, seeming quite relaxed despite everything. Luis noticed Ashley lying down on a small couch off to the side, seeming to be fast asleep, while still being threatened with large ornate spears. How the hell she could sleep in this situation with Salazar leering at her from above with his two verdugo guards on either side of her was beyond him. 

“Ashley!” Leon called over to her, Ashley drowsily sat up lying looking around and perking up when she saw him.

“Leon!”

“Shut up.” Salazar hissed at her and she glared back at him looking as though she wanted to argue , but she caught Luis’ gaze as he shook his head and she simply sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Well well, you've gotten past all my traps hm? A little more impressive that we expected from you but then again you had ...help.” Salazar glared at Luis, who didn't flinch at his hatred, he knew why he hated him and honestly pitied him. That said, Salazar was really good at testing his patience. 

“Listen bud, i don't want to keep doing this, just let Ashley go home.” Leon said, stepping forward slightly as he spoke and probably knowing it wasn't going to work but trying it anyways

“As if. Once las plagas has set in we won't have to deal with the likes of you getting in the way, but until then the Lord has directed me to distract you, and get rid of you if at all possible.” 

“Oh come on, Chaparrito, there's no reason to do this. “ Luis was well aware he wasn't helping the situation by insulting him, but he didn't care enough to stop. “Just let the girl go. Quiero decir, no creo que ella quiera salir contigo. i don't see what you could possibly gain from this.” 

“Callate hijo de puta!” Salazar hissed back at him, standing up, nearly red faced with either rage or embarrassment, though he had to be aware that Leon and Ashley had no idea what was being said when they weren't speaking plain english. 

“Alright, alright no need to be vulgar, but we've been through quite a lot today why not just let her go home. Saddler has las plagas back, Demonios, si la dejas ir, ocuparé su lugar.” he only reverted the last of his sentence as he thought Leon might demand he not say things like this.

“Lord Saddler wants nothing more to do with you.” Salazar sneered, pointing aggressively “for too long you were one of his favorites, his most trusted men, well you kissed that goodbye when you betrayed us. Take your little american and get the hell out of here, in fact why don't you just make it easy on all of us and finally die, adiós pendejos.” 

Salazar hit a button situated next to his throne and suddenly the floor fell out from beneath Leon and Luis, and they both were dropped. Luis couldn't even cry out as it felt like he couldn't take a breath, the only thing he was certain of was that he was going to hit the ground and break his neck and die. 

Something grabbed his arm and he was jerked back awkwardly, and uncomfortable tugging on his shoulder that still burned. Looking down he saw huge spikes protruding from the ground, looking up he saw that Leon had a hold of him and evidently had a kind of grappling hook on his belt dangling them near the wall. 

"You alright Luis?" Leon's voice was slightly strained more than likely from holding him and holding onto the rope. 

"Sí," Luis reached up and tried to help by holding onto Leon's arm, and using it to pull himself up closer, Leon helped maneuver him somewhat so he could hold him easier, an arm around his waist and Luis holding onto him as much as he could. 

"Sorry i.."

"You're not that heavy don't worry." Leon interrupted, resting his foot on the side of the wall and looking around possibly to judge what to do next. Leon scaled down the wall, a little awkwardly considering he was only using one arm, Luis didn't figure he could help much and just sort of held on trying not to think about his strong arms and occasional grunts while trying to climb down as he was calming down from the exhilaration of almost dying. 

Once he made it to the ground away from the spires, Leon set him down gently, hopping down himself and pulling back his grappling hook. 

“Didn't think i'd uh...fall for that kind of trap.” Leon commented, “What the hell did you say to him?”

“Admittedly...nothing that nice.” Luis smiled a little sheepishly, when they looked up Luis noticed the trap door had closed.

“Well...can't blame you too much.” Leon smirked a little, a smile that was extinguished when his little radio device went off again.

"Looks like I need a new number." Leon muttered, picking up the device again. "What do you want?" He answered it, rolling his eyes and sighing. 

“So you lived...unfortunate.” Salazar’s annoyed voice seeped through the crackling of the radio as Leon must have allowed it to be projected out as he held the device in front of him. 

“For you maybe.” Leon scoffed, “if you think that's all it takes to get rid of me you got another thing coming.”

"No matter, I've sent my right hand to dispose of you both, assuming Luis is still alive though he's a fool." Salazar said remaining somewhat composed though Luis could tell he was pissed. He didn't bother dignifying his insult with a response, unfortunately Leon did it for him. 

"You're right hand comes off?" If Leon meant to sound sarcastic he sort of failed, and mostly sounded stupid, though admittedly it was funny. 

"You can say whatever you like, but be a good loser and die, malditos gusanos!" Salazar shouted, hanging up. His indignant rage pathetic and even with the context Luis had he sort of rolled his eyes,

"Little asshole. So where are we?"

"Right around the sewer I believe, " Luis grimaced.

"Of course." Leon seemed just as displeased, he sort of glanced around, finding dead bodies and spires and such and a ladder not too far away that led down a stone tunnel.

"Huh..wonder where this guy got a crown." Leon kicked at a corpse which held a dusty but surprisingly intact crown in it's lap. 

"Probably stole it, can't figure any other reason Salazar would have thrown him down here," Luis said gesturing to the other ganados skewered on the spikes. "Then again, Senior Salazar likes to throw little tantrums about anything." Luis shrugged, putting perhaps a little too much venom in his words. 

"Is he really twenty?" Leon asked, leading the way up the ladder and starting down the sewer tunnel frowning a little presumably at the filth. "he acts like he's fourteen and Looks like he might be nine." 

"Sí, there's no doubt the power trip and being spoiled got to his head, he's never had to grow up and yet he wonders why Mendez and Saddler do not respect him." Luis nodded, trying to ignore their surroundings, as the thought was making his skin crawl.

“Why the hell would he want Saddlers' respect?” 

“Well I think Saddler came in at just the right time, Salazar”s parents had died recently when I assume Saddler entered the picture and convinced him to use his newfound influence to revive los illuminados. i can't say what the deal with Mendez is but Salazar did genuinely believe Saddler had good intentions, and Mendez allowed Saddler to replace him as authority in the church.” 

"They really trust him don't they?" Leon shook his head, "well, Mendez is dead now but...i dunno it seems crazy that they'd really put their lives and money and everything else in Saddler's hands." 

"He's a very good salesman, that's not to say that Salazar was ever very..ah intelligent so perhaps it wouldn't have worked so well if he were."

"Well, it worked on you, and you're pretty damn smart so," Leon shrugged, "I think he's just good at manipulation like you said, there had to be a reason everybody was just fine with being in charge here." 

Luis nodded a little flushed, and then stumbled having tripped on something he couldn't quite see in the murky water. 

"Careful," Leon lightly touched his arm as if to steady him though he'd done it already himself. "I was gonna ask, why is there a sewer?"

"Hell if I know, it's mainly for rainwater, but it doesn't really flood much here." Luis muttered,"I'm sure you've noticed there's really not any running water here anymore either sure it was mostly in the castle but still. If it helps at all this is mostly manure and mud." 

"I figured that's why everything is so dirty."

"Yes. Believe me no one would have stood for the state of the village as it is now before the infection." 

"Good to know everything wasn't always terrible." 

"No..it really wasn't." Luis sighed sadly but didn't have time to sit and dwell on it. It wasn't too long before the water began to dry up and the tunnel ahead was miraculously dry if still dirty. Luis was grateful for that at least but his pant legs were still wet and slimy. 

The hall seemed something like a maintenance tunnel, though Luis wasn't sure when or why it had been used ever. He’d never spent too much time in the castle, and what time he had spent was blurry as it must not have been that important that he’d recall it. Thus didn't really know much about the intricacies of daily life and upkeep. Leon led them down an offshoot of the tunnel with a door at the end, supposedly to explore it. 

“Hey, there's an elevator here.” Leon turned to him looking through the door that creaked open. 

“Good, it appears there's a shotgun too.” the two of them wandered inside and Luis picked up the weapon that was set on the table next to a dimly lit candle that was nearly just a puddle of wax. It was a very old shotgun from the looks of it, he didn't remember exactly the last time he'd used one, he wondered if it still worked. There were a handful of shells lying next to it and a note that simply read, ‘just in case’. Which turned the knob of his anxiety up the eleven, suddenly not trusting the room or even the whole tunnel. 

“Shit...it's broken. Or at least not running.” 

“Of course..” Luis muttered, walking forward with the new weapon in hand as he looked over the controls, a red blinking light under the label 'insufficient power’.

“I don't suppose you can do maintenance huh?”

“No, I can't say i do..” Luis frowned trying to think, “maybe there's a way to restore power to this thing.”

“Is that what's wrong?”

“Yes. perhaps we can find a source down the tunnel somewhat.” Luis stated and Leon nodded following him, “ also i think you might be more suited to using this.” he handed Leon the shogun and the shells, “i'm not really the best with guns.”

“Are you kidding? You're a natural.” Leon smiled a little at him but took the shotgun anyways, “i don't believe that for a second. How did you learn just out of curiosity?”

“My family hunted a lot back in the day which is the only reason I can use a gun. I learned a couple of things...over the past couple of years but other than that i don't really know anything.” he tried not to grimace at his own last comment.

“Yeah? Well, it's not like you're trained but you're clearly pretty capable, and tough too since you're all beat up and still walking around. It's impressive honestly.”

“Well..i have to do what i have to do. It's not really because I'm skilled or anything, it's just because I have to keep going, you know. But thank you.” 

“Of course Luis. you're really growing on me y’know that?” 

“I certainly would hope so. At least enough that you don't want me dead right.” Luis joked and Leon gave him a look he couldn't quite describe but took his comment in stride.

“Hey,I'd be doing a pretty shit job of killing you since I keep trying to help. Not that you need it clearly.”

“Aren't you sweet.” The conversation was helping him feel less nervous but he still glanced around as if looking for something to be hiding in the shadows. 

The hallways were dark and damp, along a lot of the edges were a handful of canisters that Luis was sort of curious about but not enough to stray too far from the safety of Leons side with his flashlight’s weak light attached to his belt breaking through the darkness. Their footsteps echoed in the tunnel and Luis swore he could hear scuttling of something along the ceiling, his stomach twisting into knots at the thought.

At the end of the tunnel was another room, this one with metal gates and large machines strewn about in a maze, a bright orange light emanating from a bulb above the door, giving the room an ominous glow but the light was more welcome than the tunnels. 

They both wandered through the room looking around, trying to find some way out of here, luis wandered away from him for a mere moment to look over another of canisters, which based on the sign was filled with liquid nitrogen. He had no idea why that would be the case, the castle was nowhere near the island which had the labs and the freezer. Before he had time to figure it out Leon called over to him. 

“Hey Luis i think i found the...control panel or something...i can't really read it though.”

Luis walked over and glanced at the control panel and tried to make heads or tails of them. He reached over and made a wild guess flipping a couple switches, only to hear a loud buzzing and whirring. 

“Did that work?”

“No lo sé? Perhaps though.” Luis looked around and then located a handful of papers on the floor, he wandered over to it and picked up the papers looking them over and realizing they were some sort of instructions

“Oh I found something, it says to...essentially do what I did, and it should supposedly start working again in about seven to ten minutes.” 

“Excellent.” Leon smiled and gently set his hand on the small of his back, he felt his face warm but the light of the room probably hid it. He hoped.

They doubled back to the entrance to the room but the door had closed, Luis saw a panel next to it he hadn't noticed that had another bright red light. Leon reached over and jiggled the handle but the door didn't move.

"The door locked?" Leon rattled the handle again but it didn't budge. Luis swore he heard more scuttling noises.

"It's probably a safety thing, it should open soon." Luis tried reassuring him though he was nervous himself, and honestly had no idea, the aura of unease about these tunnels was magnified by the fact that they couldn't leave this room. 

"I don't like this…" Leon muttered, looking around frowning slightly. 

Luis saw something out of the corner of his eye and grabbed Leon pulling him out of the way of a huge black mass that just narrowly missed him, Luis heard nails scraping against the stone floors and a creature unfurled itself from the floor as both of them stared at the thing in horror.

It stood much taller than both of them, with bright orange eyes that glowed in the darkness of the room, it's whole body black and bug-like, it has huge claws with three fingers, dinosaur esq feet, and a long black tail with a sharp spike on the end of it. It's white bald head featured a hideous mouth with an odd unhinged jaw.

Salazar’s right hand man, the Verdugo. 

Leon and Luis both readied their weapons but it hissed and lunged again before the two of them could do anything. They both dodged it in opposite directions, barely missing it's claws and tail. Luis shot at the creature once he was sure Leon was out of range, but it didn't seem phased by the bullets. The verdugo eyed him, he swore there was something still almost human in it's gaze, but all Luis could see was hatred. 

It lunged at him again and though he managed to miss it's claws but the force of it's weight slammed his body against the machines. Dull bruising pain all down his back and he groaned as he tried to push the monster off of him but it picked him up by his throat lifting him above it's head. He tried to kick it off of him grunting and desperately trying to breathe, it looked as though it were getting ready to throw him and he doubted he would survive if it did. 

It shrieked suddenly and dropped him to the ground, he landed hard on his injured shoulder and couldn't help the cry of pain as for a brief moment he couldn't think about anything but the stabbing pain. Leon had shot at it's legs and it whipped around and lunged at him, Luis trying to wake himself up enough to stand again as he was useless now whimpering and panting on the floor. 

There was a loud buzzing and Leon dodged around the Verdugo over to where Luis was still pulling himself up from the floor.

“C'mon let's go, the door unlocked I think.” Leon said hurriedly and picked him up from the ground. Leon aimed and fired at the verdugo again and it screeched, though it seemed as though the bullets were only pissing it off and not hurting it. They both managed to run past it and through the door and down the tunnel, Leon pausing for a moment and looking around for the monster.   
“Are you ok?”

“Yeah..no...i don't know..” Luis wheezed and coughed, pain throbbing throughout his whole body but he couldn't stop; he knew that. “Leon we have to keep..keep going.” 

“Yeah ok..”

A loud clanking was heard and behind them the verdugo appeared again snarling. Despite the pain Luis tried to run forward down the tunnel Leon following him and trying to shoot as he ran but the thing was far too fast. It ran straight for Luis and knocked him down and he groaned, the weight of it's body was too much for him and though it tried to slash at him and he was fighting it off he couldn't keep doing it. Leon grabbed it from behind and yanked it backwards, one arm was gripping Luis’ tightly and it stood holding him up by the arm and trying to throw Leon off it's neck, succeeding by wrapping it's tail around Leon's waist and tossing him down the tunnel. The verdugo held him at eye level while Luis squirmed feeling as though it was nearly ripping his arm out of socket.

He saw leon out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to be trying to figure out what to do and must have gotten an idea as he ran over to the canisters of nitrogen on the side of the wall. he grabbed one of them and pushed straining with the effort until it gave way and clattered to the floor, the top being broken off spraying the liquid nitrogen all over the floor. As it was distracted, Luis managed to break away from the vertigo's grip as it's feet froze to the ground and it shrieked in pain. It lunged again and pinned Leon to the floor still screeching and snarling, trying to slash at his chest and arms. 

"Luis!" Leon grunted under the vertigos weight reaching for the shotgun he must have dropped when grabbed. 

Luis pulled himself to his knees, picked up the shotgun and, hands shaking, fired at the creature that kept screeching when hit but still not dying. Luis managed to hit it right in the head and It lifted its hands off Leon, stumbled backwards clearly in pain, and collapsed to the floor writhing like a dying insect. Leon jumped to his feet and ran over to Luis who'd stopped shooting as he was out of ammo, which was probably for the best as he wasn't used to the recoil like he had been years ago. Leon set his hand on his back and turned to say something, but there was a loud buzzing sound that interrupted whatever Leon was going to say to him. 

"The elevator, I think it's finally here." Luis told him relief so evident he could hear it in his own voice.

"Thank god.” Leon muttered and grabbed his hand and the shotgun from him and they ran off into the direction of the elevator while the verdugo was still writhing on the floor, but looking as though it was about to get up again. Luis was sure he was wheezing and grunting as they made their way back to the elevator room, he heard the monster scuttling behind them as they ran and the panic in his chest was nearly overwhelming. Leon pushed him inside the elevator first and shot his handgun at the monster slowing it down slightly before stepping inside himself. 

“Cover your ears.” Leon said and he pulled what Luis realized was another grenade off of his belt and tossing it next to the verdugo. There was a moment of silence as the elevator rattled upwards and then an explosion and shrieking.there was more silence afterwards before Leon spoke again.

"Hopefully...that took care of it." Leon half panted.

“I certainly hope so too…” Luis agreed just as out of breath, the pain that had been wracking his body before seemed to increase tenfold while he was calming down, and as the elevator rattled upwards, part of him wanting to cling to Leon the other part too numb to really think about what had just happened. He couldn't sit here and drown in fear, there was too much at stake. There was nothing else they could do but keep moving forward.

Leon, to his surprise, reached over and set his hand on his uninjured shoulder silently. Neither of them said anything, they didn't acknowledge it after and for now simply sat in silence and let the moment hang in the air.


	4. Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the barkers call the moon down  
> The carnival was ringing loudly now  
> And just to lay with you  
> There's nothing that I wouldn't do  
> Save lay my rifle down  
> And we are vagabonds  
> We travel without seat belts on  
> To live this close to death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is bullshitingly long so id apologize but like i wont, though i may go back in and edit some of this more. pretty fun stuff to come though!  
>  leave a comment if you like it let me know what you think.   
> stay safe, ilu <3

The elevator creaked lightly as it ascended for another handful of moments before coming to a stop. The cave ahead of them foreboding, they both silently walked forward away from the safe haven of the lightbulb in the elevator. Luis slower as it still wasn't the easiest to breathe. The pain was sort of dying down as he walked though, he was certain he'd be bruised all to hell but he was pretty sure there weren't any broken bones. 

“Where are we right now?” Leon asked softly after a moment of making their way through down the tunnel. 

“I believe the mines.” Luis answered lightly, hopping down from a slightly tall ledge as carefully as possible. “They're sort of shoddily set up and not maintained well so be careful of holes or falling beams.”

“Yeah? Why's that?”

“Saddler when he first arrived here oh...maybe five nearly six years ago I'd say, once he got control over Salazar and Mendez he ordered them to excavate las plagas from under the castle. They'd been sealed away here for decades, since the thirties at the latest, though i honestly don't remember the full history. They didn't spend too much time setting up the actual mines as he was very insistent about getting it out as quickly as possible, for obvious reasons.” Luis gestured with on hand as he explained. 

“Huh. i didn't realize all this was so old.”

“Yes, unfortunately los illuminados and the plagas aren't new, but they both are a lot worse than in the past. There are old texts in the church referencing both, but more so regarding the deaths and rituals, though details on how to do them weren't allowed to be read. It wasn't really prevalent as i was growing up, my grandparents were children when the plagas were hidden by Salazar’s family.”

“Huh. well that...doesn't make sense but it's...interesting.” Leon tilted his head as he listened seeming to be genuinely fascinated by what Luis was telling him. 

“Certainly. If this were something that had happened decades ago perhaps it would be interesting to me, but not anymore.” Luis sighed, kicking up some dust as he hopped down from another ledge, one hand steadying himself on the wall. Leon followed suit and they rounded a corner down a tunnel with railroad track on the ground. 

They both followed it, Luis stepping on the thin metal rail and balancing lightly for no real reason other than some inner instinct. There was a handful of lights strung along the ceiling that gave the tunnel a slightly less ominous feeling, though it was still dark and damp with water dripping down from the walls. Leon had removed the flashlight from his belt for a moment and graced it along the walls to look around before replacing it, hearing some echoing a little ways down the tunnel. 

They came to a brighter opening, a huge cavern with machines and some more rails a little further ahead, ledges leading up to other machines that Luis was almost sure were for the electricity but he didn't know. There were cranes and steep rock piles lying around stacked high enough to create paths forward and off to the side.

“Well let's see if we can get the hell out of here, i uh don't think this place complies with safety regulations. “ Leon coughed from all the dust kicked up in the confined room. Luis could barely breathe himself. They climbed down from the platform with the railroad track from a ladder into this rocky hole. The track continued a little ways ahead of them, with one minecart full of rocks and dynamite. 

Just as they hit the floor Luis heard voices shouting to one another and looked up finding a small group of ganados were shoving a large rock near the edge of a cliff and after a minute of effort managed to push if off of the ledge and right in front of the two of them blocking off the door ahead that they needed to get through. They were just far enough away that it didn't hurt them but the cheering and laughter from the villagers was somewhat infuriating enough.

“Que es grosero, don't we have enough to worry about without you all making this harder.” he muttered to himself drawing his gun just in case. “I am trying to help you all for God's sake.” he knew well enough that they had no real control over their actions but he was getting rather aggravated by each minor roadblock.

“No shit. This sucks.” Leon sighed lightly 

The ganados whispered something amongst themselves, Luis unable to make out what they were saying as he shook his head when Leon cocked his own questioning him. They all glared downward at the two of them smirking and chuckling and before Luis or Leon could react they began throwing rocks at them. Oe narrowly missing Luis’s head and a few others hitting Leon's arms and legs. They both ducked and ran off behind some rocks, Luis could hear their jeering and knew what they were saying but tried to block it out anyways.

Leon leaned out of their hiding space and tried to shoot at the ganados, they called to each other to fall back as evidently they hadn't counted on him being armed. He did manage to hit one as he was running away. He cried out and fell off of the ledge directly on his neck which snapped loudly against the ground. 

He didn't die. His head split open revealing a mass of fleshy tendrils crawling through the man's split skull. One putrid orange and yellow eye emerging at the center of the fleshy mass as the body pulled itself to it's feet. The tendrils grew and swiped at the area around them as the new creature made sickening noises despite not having a mouth. Blood and puss dripped from the mound of flesh onto the dirt below it as it stumbled forward. 

"Jesus. " Leon muttered, aiming at the parasite but hesitating, though Luis didn't know why.

One of the creature's tendrils abruptly lunged forward and secured itself around Leon's throat before he could react. Leon choked and shot at the parasite but missed, grunting in pain while he tried to rip the meaty appendage off of himself. 

Luis stood up quickly and almost instinctively pulled out his gun and put a bullet through the tendril that blasted through it. Leon gasped finally able to breathe again clutching his throat, and Luis turned his gun on the parasite and shot it directly in the eye, the creature screeched and the body collapsed to it's knees, writhing in place while fluid pooled out of the punctured eye onto the ground before it slumped over motionless. The tendrils were still twitching as it died.

“Are you alright?” Luis ran over to Leon and set his hand on his shoulder while Leon rubbed his throat with his eyes closed trying to catch his breath, his face flushed as though he were sick. 

“Yeah...yeah i'm alright. Fuck..” Leon muttered his voice hoarse, he looked over at luis and smiled a little, “thanks, you've saved my ass quite a few times now huh?” 

“Of course Leon, i don't know where i'd be without you here. Dead more than likely.” 

“Well that makes two of us.” Leon smiled, looking over at the body and shuddering a little, Luis decided not to mention the body again.

“So how are we going to get out of here?”

“hmm...Hey we can get that dynamite probably.” Leon pointed out gesturing back to the minecart. “I'm sure it'll help get that rock out of the way.”

“You think that will work?” 

“I mean maybe, might as well try.” Leon shrugged walking over and reaching up to grab the wooden platform where the cart full of rocks and dynamite sat. He, with seemingly zero exertion involved, pulled himself up with just his arms and crawled onto the platform that creaked under his weight. He grabbed the dynamite and jumped down landing on his feet almost effortlessly, walking it over by tossing it in one hand and catching it over and over.

“Here we are.” Leon smiled but then paused, “wait i dunno how we're gonna light it…”

“Hold on, i think..” Luis pulled his lighter out of his pocket, why he kept it despite not often having any cigarettes he wasn't sure, perhaps just wishful thinking. He tried to light it a few times, it having been quite awhile since he'd attempted to use it. After a handful of tries it finally gave way to a small but viable flame. “Ah consiguió!” 

“Nice.“ Leon handed him the dynamite and Luis lit it gingerly, somewhat afraid that it would simply go off despite the long fuse. Leon grabbed it and lightly ran over to the rock nestling it into the cracks and running back grabbing Luis’ hand to drag him back behind the rocks. They waited what felt like baited breath for a few moments before a shattering explosion half rocked the room. Dust falling from the ceiling and rocks falling into the small pit. 

When they stood and turned to look the rock was gone, shattered into a good hundred pieces to reveal a short path to a door on the other side. 

“Well that was lucky huh? C'mon this room is making my chest hurt.”

“Si, me too.” Luis swallowed trying to get the dust out of his throat. They made their way over the debris and shoved the door open on the other side, there was a hot wave of air that billowed out of the doors when they entered, and the next room was boiling, the floor was made only of a metal grate with small diamond shaped holes, right under the floor though a few meters down was a pool of magma, the cerner of the room had a circular metal plate, on one side of the room was a lever and the other side was a ladder with a platform, though Luis had no idea what they could be for. 

"Another damn room full of lava?" Leon gestured with an eye roll at the floor. “Why? This isn't a mountain?”

“Dios, i don't know. Let's get the hell out of here though, it's too damn hot.” Luis huffed lightly, pulling his shirt away from his chest, he was sweating so much already, he could practically feel himself getting filthier. As if he needed any more dirt to top off the rest of the grime on his body.

Before they said much else, the door across from them opened and two giants stomped forward, both in what appeared to be clothes, one wearing a kind of mask over the lower half of its face and both in leather, Luis had no time to really consider the implications of this as they spotted the two of them instantly and bagan roaring in anger. 

"Shit.." Luis muttered looking over at Leon who glanced around quickly, drawing his gun and scowling. 

"Luis, i'm gonna distract them, when I tell you to, pull that lever ok?" Leon said, turning to face him briefly and pointing out a huge lever on one side of the room, Luis nodded in response but unsure what his plan was. Both of them ran off in opposite directions, the monsters seeming confused at first as if unsure of whom to chase until Leon started firing at them and they both roared indignantly stomping and zeroing in on him. 

Leon pulled his shotgun off of his back and fired twice at the monsters, before grabbing a ladder attached to a platform a couple meters above him. Luis waited with baited breath watching Leon narrowly avoid being hit by their fists, with one hand resting on the lever. He got to the top and shot at one of el gigante, evidently hitting it in the eyes and it tumbled backwards roaring in pain. Leon replaced his gun and grabbed what looked to be a zip line of sorts grabbing the handles and yelling something down to the monsters and he pushed himself off the platform while one of them angrily shook it to try and get him down. The zipline led right down to where Luis was by the lever, he was going quite fast. 

Leon let go of the handle and fell, Luis instinctively jerked away from the lever, reaching out and managed to catch him, heavy as he was, pulling him to a more stable standing position but not letting go, Leon holding his forearms for stability. 

"Careful, cariño." 

"Thanks.." Leon smiled briefly but seemed to realize something right after, "Luis grab the lever." 

"Shit, right." Luis let go of him and turned, grabbing the lever yanking it down as hard as possible. 

The hole in the floor opened up a cloud of smoke rising and the giants dropped down into the pit, roaring in pain and trying desperately to claw their way out but failing and being drowned in the magma. The sight was incredible and horrible at the same time. They were both quiet for a moment panting, the heat in the room wasn't making the adrenaline any better, Luis half certain he was about to pass out. 

“Querido Dios,” Luis muttered, “how did you know that would work?”

“Well...truth be told i didn't.” Leon shrugged with a sheepish smirk. 

“Lucky for us you've got some good intuition hm?” 

“Thanks. What the hell even are those?”

“El gigante, they..well i don't even totally remember how, they managed it, but they're a result of tampering with human bodies. They're completely artificial, in that they were never once human like some of the others, they used to be relatively small believe it or not. “ Luis explained the best he could remember without making it too complicated. “It did require corpses to make the body mass but, quite a lot of corpses.”

“Jesus...how many did they even manage to make?”

“I believe only four or so, they're too difficult to handle and they don't mutate naturally. They had to live in some caves ahead here if I'm correct because of how large they are.” 

“Huh…” Leon nodded thoughtfully, “hey you look like you're about to pass out. Let's get out of here.”

“Sounds like a great idea, caramelo.” Luis panted, his head was spinning a little and his vision blurry. They walked to the other side of the room and pushed open the heavy double doors.

They walked out into a huge chasm with a long treacherous path winding its way along the edges of the walls, and a treacherously long and fragile path through the middle leading to a door. Luis noted two statues of angels on the other sides of the door and an odd what looked to be a mirror on the opposite side when they walked more into the room. It was significantly cooler in this room, so much so that Luis shivered slightly. Better than the last room at least. 

Just in front of them was a smallish statue, not much taller than the two of them, it was of a cloaked figure holding a lantern and a staff with a plaque along the bottom of it. Luis crouched down a little to try and make out the scratched and slightly faded inscription. 

“What is it this time?” 

"The wisdom of two saints will shine through the valley of death." Luis read out after managing to make it all out, scraping some mud off the letters. “Not sure what that means.”

“Can't say. Probably some dumb..riddle or something.” Leon shrugged and Luis nodded standing up again.

As they walked down the path Luis kept looking around trying to keep a lookout for anything dangerous, he had no clue what might have made a nest in here while el gigante were no longer taking up residence and really didn't want to find out. His stomach was tied up in knots, and he kept one hand on his gun, and the other was busy twisting his rings around his fingers.

Leon stopped abruptly, frowning down at something along the edges of the rocks, he crouched down next to what appeared to be a hole in the ground squinting into it while pulling out his flashlight. 

“Whatcha think?”

“Hm…i don't know honestly.” Luis shrugged, bending over and trying to make something out himself. It smelled musty and he could hear droplets of water periodically dropping to what sounded like a puddle. 

"...i'll check it out, you wait here and let me know if anything happens." Leon told him and Luis nodded, hand placed on his holstered gun while Leon crawled under and into the hole shining his flashlight at the floor so as not to trip. 

Luis watched him go, looking around to try and keep himself composed, much as his gut was telling him otherwise he wanted to believe that things weren't going to go wrong. Sort of ashamed of having this feeling the second Leon was out of his sight, he'd been alone so long he guessed he was becoming too attached. He couldn't help the discomfort that thought gave him. 

He heard a buzzing sound, very faint and far away but nevertheless there and he stood picking up his gun, darting his eyes around the room, breath quickening as he tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. He saw something wiz past him and aimed in that direction, while the buzzing got louder and he leaned in to the pit. More novistadors, of course. There was a swarm of the bugs emerging, albeit a little slowly, from the pit. Luis didn't think he could afford to waste ammo on these things but there was no way he'd get out of here unscathed without doing something. He noted rocks along the edges of the road and decided to take a note from the ganados earlier, running over and grabbing a handful to throw at the novistadors. He missed the first few, naturally, but the chaos seemed to deter some of them from getting any closer. He didn't think they had any sense of self preservation so this both fascinated and relieved him. He did manage to hit one of them sending it careening down into the pit with a pathetic buzz and hiss. 

Out of nowhere a bright light began eminanting from one of the statues, effectively frightening away a good handful of the novistadors with hissing and sputtering. Leon emerged from the tunnel after a moment looking around, while Luis tried to catch his breath.

“Found a weird switch in there.”

“Sounds about right, The light is scaring off the novistadors at least.” 

“Fine by me.” Leon nodded standing up and dusting himself off. “I'm kinda wondering if there's a way to turn the other one on.”

“Well there's only one way to find out.” Luis shrugged, absently reaching over and briefly touching Leon's shoulder before continuing down the path. The light from the statue was reflecting against the mirror almost blindingly. 

They came across another one of the tunnels, Luis still nervous about the novistadors coming back almost suggested going in himself, but Leon seemed to have already taken it upon himself to take care of it. 

"Awsome, I love dark nasty holes." Leon quipped getting on his hands and knees again. Luis smiled and shook his head, the humor welcome despite everything. 

Leon crawled down in the other tunnel while Luis crouched by the entrance, waiting for the swarms of monsters coming back, it seemed to take longer this time, maybe it was just that he was shaking a little and knew what was in this cave, his shoulder still stung periodically as a reminder of the capabilities of those wretched things. 

There was a clicking sound and the other light flickered on, the beams from both statues reflected off the mirror and focused themselves on the door. A loud clunk echoed throughout the room and the door rumbled and slid down revealing the exit to the cave. Leon appeared a moment later grunting as he crawled out of the hole, and straightened himself. 

“Anything happen?”

“The door opened.” Luis pointed it out, “you know, how doors open normally.” 

“Yeah alright...sure.” Leon tilted his head and frowned slightly.

“My head hurts.” Luis muttered, Leon gently patted his back and they began to make their way towards the tunnel. At this point his legs were killing him and he didn't need the headache to go with it. The path over the cavern was just as unnerving to him as the one in the old ballroom, he had to wonder why there were so many deep holes around this castle as it definitely didn't seem structurally safe at all, but it didn't matter he guessed. They made it to the now open door in one piece at least. 

The tunnel was long and tight, but decently lit. Him and Leon were practically touching one another’s shoulders while they walked, Luis occasionally looking over at him as he simply derived a sense of calm from this, guilty as he felt when he looked away. They climbed over a ledge, Leon pulling him up with one hand when he inevitably had difficulty supporting his weight with injured arms and shoulders. Just ahead was some sort of mechanism causing huge boulders to be lifted to the ceiling and slammed back down over and over again, methodical like a machine, blocking the way forward. 

Leon looked over this predicament for a few moments while Luis took it as a brief opportunity to sit and rest with his legs dangling over the edge looking back to sort of assess the situation himself, his legs still as sore as before Standing again when he got an idea.

"You know I think we can fit through here." Luis pointed out the gap between the rocks and the wall. “We might be able to get around all this.”

"Well, No offence but speak for yourself, i'm not skinny enough to fit through there. " Leon chuckled a little, gesturing to himself. 

"Oh…" Luis sort of looked him over realizing he was right, and it wasn't just because of his rather broad chest either. "Yes you've got a point hm. I think I can get through if i'm careful and maybe i can find another way through.” 

“Well if you wanna try, be careful though.” 

“Don't worry about me, querido.” Luis smiled and then pressed himself against the wall and tried his best to shuffle himself through the gap. He realized Leon had definitely been right as it was a tight fit even in spite of how thin he was, the rocks slightly grazing his chest as it slammed against the floor. He tried to press himself tighter against the wall, not liking the feeling or that the boulders were hazardously close to crushing his feet. The end of this crevice came eventually however and once he managed to slip out he took a deep breath, looking back he wondered how he'd managed it, and why. 

He glanced around and found a large lever embedded into the cave wall, taking a guess as to it's purpose he pulled it down, hearing some creaking as the boulders shuddered and all three of them rose to the top securing themselves into the ceiling. 

“There we go.” he gestured outwardly as Leon strolled over rather casually. 

“Well that worked out huh.” 

“Sure did, lets see what nonsense is next.”

“It's almost like a haunted house, but y'know actually dangerous.” Leon shrugged as they began walking into the next room.

“A haunted house?” Luis frowned tilting his head.

“Yeah yknow like..you'd go to em around halloween and go through a building with fake rubber props and smoke and metal and people jump out and scare you...ok i guess it's less like a haunted house here but..” he shrugged a little sheepish.

“That sounds unpleasant.” Luis’ own halloween experience was a more somber event at least in his village, the parties his father had talked about were forgone for a night usually spent around the cemetery telling stories of those who had passed away.

“It's fun. Especially if you get a little drunk beforehand.” Leon shrugged again, “but i guess the similarity is just that it's one room of bullshit after another.”

“I guess that's fair hm.” 

The room they were in was quite large but not nearly as large as the room before. There was a sort of coffin it seemed, or memorial perhaps in the center of the room and an opening in the ceiling a perfect circle as if the platform would fit perfectly above them. A jewel was set into the stone plate with what seemed to be a poem or some sort right above it. Upon closer inspection it was a bible verse, at least he was pretty sure as it sounded familiar but very vaguely.

“What is this?”

“A memorial i think,” Luis answered, “it has two of these..biblical verses i suppose ‘Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.’ and ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ strange choices to pair together really. But i think it's for one or more of Salazar's family members.”

“Huh..weird.” Leon frowned, “i'm not religious really, I don't get this shit.”

“Ah me either, most of my memory of this sort of thing is old habit mainly. Fun fact, Mendez used to be a priest here, I remember him in the church when I was a child.”

“Huh..somehow Saddler looks like he fits the job a bit better.” Leon stepped forward slightly and picked up the jewel from the tablet and looked it over.

“I suppose it's the robe that does it.” Luis gave a light breathy laugh and noticed a switch under the indent where the jewel had been, and he reached over and flipped it. Slight rumbling was heard and the circular platform rose much like an elevator, catching them off guard so they both grabbed the side of the tomb, through the hole in the ceiling stopping when the edge and the hole aligned. 

“Huh…” Leon looked around, they evidently were in ruins right outside the castle, in the distance on the opposite side Luis could see another tower, circular in nature and rising higher than even the clocktower had been. Luis had the impression that Ashley and Salazar were up there.

“To that tower over there then i guess.” 

As they walked through the ruins Luis pondered what these buildings used to be. He was pretty sure they once had been the houses of people who worked in the castle, people who cleaned it or took care of the Salazar family animals and cooks and other workers. He knew they were nice houses, some vague memory of his father commenting on how much nicer they were than their own, and it was sad in a way that there was nothing but ruins left of them. Just broken furniture and walls and dust everywhere. He had to wonder what had happened in only the last eight years to reduce such a vibrant little neighborhood to this. 

Leon kept looking around looking slightly sad at the ruins even if he had no context for what it used to be. Perhaps it was just his normal expression but he couldn't help but almost see the grief in his pale, bloodshot eyes. Leon had said something about being involved with some of what had happened in Raccoon City years ago, and he wondered if this brought up similar feelings, though he knew he had very limited knowledge on what the baggage of that city entailed himself. 

Right at the base of the circular tower was both a broken down shack on the side of the tower, and between them and these buildings there was a bonfire crackling with life, and a stack of firewood not far from it. Nobody was around surprisingly enough, and while they both looked for anyone ready to ambush them they were alone. 

“Guess dinners cancelled. “ Leon commented, putting his gun away once they regrouped. 

“That door is definitely locked. At least if Salazar has learned his lesson thus far. I have no idea as to where a key could possibly be.” Luis sighed, yawning and rubbing his bruised shoulders and back. Leon frowned and looked around thinking. 

"Hey, Lets just...rest for a bit. " he offered after a moment.

"Are you sure? What about Ashley?" 

"It's freezing and this fire is still going pretty strong. It'll be just for a minute." Leon set himself in front of the fire, pushing his bangs out of his face. “we can't keep walking forever and i really don't think they'll hurt her at this point, they've had her for a week or so and she's been, mostly, unhurt.”

“I don't think Salazar has any real intention to hurt her himself at least, that's more Saddlers department anyways. I suppose resting couldn't hurt too bad.” Admittedly Luis was cold now, discarding his vest earlier certainly hasn't helped, he sat down next to Leon, immediately feeling better once next to the bonfire, he didn't realize how exhausted he was, how terrible he felt, and how much his body ached. He hadn't even realized he was practically starving, then again he never really paid much attention to that particular signal. 

"You look exhausted...How long have you been up?" Leon asked, kindness and concern evident in his face. 

"Oh….actually i'm not too sure...i haven't slept since..before you found me in that closet. I was trying to rest, sort of, when they caught me and shoved me in there. I suppose I did pass out a little after that but since then I've been awake. It's not like i've had a good night's sleep in a very long while so it's not going to bother me. " 

"Jesus...i don't know how long it's been since the cabin which was at night.." he seemed to be trying to figure out a general timeline of events.

"It's about ...oh five or six o'clock now id guess based on the sun...i think that was last night then.." 

"Did we spend all damn day in that castle?" Leon shook his head, "god no wonder i'm tired…"

"I'm guessing you haven't taken much of a break hm?"

"No..well i did pass out for like six hours but other than that.."

"Six hours? What happened?"

"I'm assuming something to do with that plaga since before that I was coughing up blood and I felt really dizzy." 

"Yes well.. that'll do it." Luis sighed, decently worried. 

“Hey it's alright, I'm more hungry than anything else. I mean there were some fish around the lake but I didn't have a chance to catch any.” Leon smiled lightly to show he was joking.

"I wouldn't eat that fish, amigo." Luis shook his head, "probably full of parasites." 

"Gross." Leon nodded, tossing some nearby wood into the fire and sitting again. "God I really could go for some real food though, I've only had a couple eggs I found lying around."

"Ah...how did you cook those?" Luis frowned a little. 

"I didn't." 

"Oh." Luis didn't really know what to say to that, the thought of eating presumably raw eggs being viscerally unpleasant. 

"I really could use a drink too, you know any good bars?" 

"No unfortunately, not really how things work here. You could probably find some very old wine, Like the kind we found in those old barrels inside, It's not the best but it gets the job done. I remember In college a lot of the students would sneak in whatever they could but that was..oh four years ago." 

"Yeah? Wine’s not really my thing, if they hadn't stolen my jacket I would have offered you my flask but.."

"They let you have a flask on a government assignment?" Luis asked though he could reasonably guess the answer, though he was a bit surprised as Leon didn't look like much of a drinker.

"Well….no but they didn't explicitly say i couldn't have one, can't get mad if they don't know." Leon shrugged. Something about his demeanor was so charming Luis couldn't help but smile. That said, he also looked exhausted, his eyes were reddened with several dark circles under them and slightly bloodshot. He looked half dead on his feet. 

"Leon...why don't you rest for a few hours. It won't hurt and i can't imagine you can keep going like this for much longer.” Luis told him gently, Leon looked concerned and yet grateful.

“Are you sure? I mean...i'm trained for shit like this and you really aren't.” 

“I'll be fine, I promise. I'll keep a lookout for things.” Luis gently set his hand on Leon’s shoulder and that seemed to be enough to convince him. 

“If you're sure, thanks though.” Leon yawned and began to settle down and try and get comfortable near the fire. “Wake me up if anything happens.” It didn't take long at all for him to fall asleep, his breathing calm and steady. Luis watched him, taking in all of his features. pale skin, soft though chapped lips, his arms a little bruised, in fact he looked somewhat battered. It was, strangely, attractive and yet sad to see as he was, at least so far as Luis knew, a kind person. He wondered if he really trusted him, but only briefly, of course he did, the man had saved him, time and time again. If he didn't trust him at least a little, then what the hell was the point of going through with all this. Besides the fact that in spite of himself, he cared about Leon, and maybe hoped in helping him he would feel less guilty. 

The day, and even the days prior had been so confusing and eventful Luis felt somewhat numbly overwhelmed, his sleep deprivation not helping the matter. He couldn't try and unpack everything that had happened, he hadn't had any real time to rest and allow his body to heal either. He looked over his arms and legs lightly, covered in dark nasty bruises, dried blood, and filth coating the skin. He pulled one of his rings off and noted the patch of clean skin where it had been. He felt disgusting, longing for a bath and sleep, and just horrible all around but he felt as though if he fell asleep he'd never wake up. Maybe that was preferable given the circumstances. 

Despite his best efforts to stay awake, he couldn't help the fact that his head kept slipping onto his own shoulders, his eyes blurry, and though he was trying as hard as he could, it was nigh impossible to stay awake. He didn't remember consciously deciding to rest; he didn't want to, but his mind kept slipping and his body with it.

It was an uneasy sleep, he kept waking up but not being fully awake, only enough to realize he was on the ground with his body angled strangely, and then he would fall back asleep, unable to even begin the process of sitting up. He wasn't dreaming per say, but there was an odd sense of unease permeating this strange lucid headspace he was in. 

He couldn't breathe.

He was choking. He was suddenly awake, or half awake, it was dark already and it took so much effort to realize what was going on around him, but all he really knew at first was there was a man's hands around his neck cutting off his air, squeezing hard enough to bruise deeply. Luis struggled against the man but the hands on his throat kept tightening. Blood trying to circulate to his head cut off as he was strangled. He was almost too exhausted to keep fighting, his vision blotchy and white as he was certain he was about to be killed despite how panicked he was. Try as he might and despite the blood and torn skin accumulating under his already dirty fingernails from clawing at anywhere he could reach, it was hopeless. 

Just as he was about to slip away again but more permanently, The man's grip suddenly loosened, something warm and wet splashing Luis’ face and when his vision became sharper he saw his assailant's expression contorted in surprise and pain, his throat cut cleanly across, blood pouring down his front and onto Luis' face and chest. A gloved hand held the knife just off to the side having paused after the execution. The body was shoved away from Luis as the man gagged on his own blood. Luis laid there in shock and some sort of dull horror listening to the sickly choking for a moment before Leon spoke softly.

"You alright?" 

"I...I'm sorry." Was all Luis could manage to say, trying to spit the blood out of his mouth. Leon knelt down, gently set a hand on his shoulder, and pulled him to a sitting position looking him in the eyes as if to make sure he was listening. 

"Don't be. It's ok. Why don't you try and rest some alright? I'll keep a lookout." 

Before he could argue or agree or really think of anything else to say he heard very distant shouting, he could make out something about them having found them. Leon perked up scanning the area not unlike a cat who'd noticed an insect in its vicinity.

"They'll be here in a moment…." Luis murmured dully, still just sitting there numb. 

"Shit..alright we've got to go i'm sorry." 

“It's fine.” Luis sighed quietly, “maybe we should go to that shack and hide.”

“Yeah alright c'mere.” Leon grabbed Luis’ hand and pulled him to his feet carefully,and set a hand on the middle of his back leading him quickly and quietly to the decaying barn next to the tower. Luis didn't process much of this, he wasn't sure how to really. 

They crawled into the barn crouching so they couldn't be seen through the cracks in the wall. Leon pulled his flashlight off of his belt and covered it slightly so it couldn't be seen out of the barn window. Luis crouched close to him but didn't say anything, he could hear voices not too far away, he wasn't even nervous really, just hyper aware of his own surroundings. The cold breeze only slightly blocked by the barn dried the blood on his face, neck , and chest. The smell was somewhat overwhelming, and he was shaking but somehow, he just didn't care. 

Looking around, Leon spotted something on the ground and crawled over to it, feeling a circular area in the dirt while trying to pick something up, Luis wasn't sure exactly what he was doing but reached over to help anyways finding that there was some kind of trap door embedded into the ground. With both of them managing to secure an edge they pulled upwards revealing a small hole with a ladder leading into the darkness. It smelled of dust and oil but otherwise could have reasonably been a basement. 

“Lets hide in here.” Leon whispered. 

“Yes alright.” 

“Are you sure you're gonna be ok Luis?”

“It's fine..it's fine it looks like we slept for a couple hours anyways. We have to rescue Ashley and I have to get that sample away from Saddler. “ he responded almost automatically though he could tell Leon noticed him stumbling on his words. He was unnerved both by how monotone his own voice was and also somehow by how shaken he felt by the incident. It probably didn't even fall under the top ten, hell top twenty of the worst things that had happened to him in the last four years, but he guessed it had something to do with how jarring it was.

“You don't have to pretend you know.”

“Hey...I'm..i'm... It's fine, really. I've woken up to worse happening to me. Don't worry about it.” With that, he began climbing down the ladder so as not to see Leon's reaction to such an out of nowhere statement that he wasn't even sure why he had bothered to say. Leon followed him and when they both reached the bottom he made no indication that what he'd just said had been poorly received. He guessed they would both just ignore it. 

The tunnel was long and dark but walking down it quietly was sort of helping Luis feel more normal despite how sticky his body was, his shirt gluing itself to his chest. Something about the dark, cool but not cold, and quiet tunnel was calming. Leons presence was helpful too, he was tailing behind but still close enough to nearly touch him, Luis vaguely worried he was breathing down Leon's neck but he couldn't bear to be any further away than he was. 

They reached the end of the tunnel after a few minutes, Luis much more calm than he'd been before, to an opening with sand all along the floor, with a tall stone memorial type thing. The room was oddly well lit, there were several lit lamps all along the ceiling that gave the cave the appearance that one was outside in a desert or beach, just not nearly as hot though the lamps were warming the room. 

“Alright…” Leon looked around, “think we’ll find a key or or something in here?”

“Perhaps. I think this leads into the mines again.” his voice sounded normal but felt far away, “or a different section of them at least.” 

“Gotcha. Anything of interest here?” Leon pointed out the memorial, and Luis took a step closer to read it better. 

“Another passage from the bible,’For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.’ under all that is a bunch of names… and the bottom, ‘let the lion choose who's worthy of heaven.” 

“Well, I don't like that.” Leon commented dryly, he glanced at Luis with an odd almost nervous expression but it disappeared the second Luis spoke again. 

“Me either. I don't know really what it could be referring to, though the names belong to people who I assume died down here.” 

Leon nodded soberly and they both wordlessly walked away from the memorial, ducking through the hole that led to the next room. 

A wide open area greeted them, a maze of short sandy walls were clustered down a short handful of stairs on their left. Above them on one side of the wall were holes, which looked to be similar to windows as if the odd distention of the wall were some sort of home built into it. There was a ladder leading up to the middle window. The room was eerily quiet and sand sprinkled down from the ceiling at occasional intervals as though it might collapse at any moment.

They made their way down the stairs and began navigating their way around the walls, Leon leading the way with his gun drawn as if he didn't trust the area, Luis held his hand on his own gun but didn't pull it out keeping his eyes anywhere and everywhere to try and find any indication that things were amiss. 

Something caught his eye as they turned a corner.

Luis noticed the bear trap Leon was moment from stumbling right into, instinct took over and he shoved him forward, Leon tripping over, twisting oddly and falling with a grunt. He wasn't quick enough, the trap had already been released. It snapped shut on Leon's calf and he cried out in pain, gripping his leg and whimpering as blood gushed from the wound. 

Luis stood there frozen, blind panic drumming against his skull as he watched Leon attempt to process what had just happened. It was when he heard him whimper again and struggled to sit up that he was thrust into action. He didn't have to think about what to do, but he did have to work with Leon's blood staining his hands. 

He managed to pull the jaws of the trap open though he was struggling to hold it and Leon removed his leg with a low groan of relief. Blood was flowing from the injury but Leon seemed much less distressed. Luis crawled over closer to him but hesitated to touch him, his chest felt tight and pained as though Leon would be pissed at him. 

“Well....this is fun.” Leon muttered, his hands shaking as he reached for his pouch that had medicine. He'd sat up but it was clearly difficult and Luis swallowed his fear and reached over taking it from him and setting a hand on his shoulder and Leon leaned back onto his elbows, eyes shut and frowning. 

“I've got it.”

Luis rolled up Leon's pant legs to look over the injury, several puncture wounds into his calf in the half circle pattern with bright red bruising forming along the injury, it looked like it might swell too. He pressed as hard as he could against the wound with the cloth and medicine and making an honest effort to clean it, he was shaking a little himself but there wasn't time to care about that, even as he flushed ashamed of letting it happen. 

"Luis…" Leon interrupted him briefly, Luis glanced up unsure of if he were grimacing entirely because of the pain or because he was concerned. "Hey...thanks."

"What for?" Luis muttered looking over the punctured holes in his skin once more before going to wrap it up, they weren't bleeding as badly anymore. 

"For y'know not letting that trap take out my whole damn leg?"

"Would've been smarter not to shove you, but that's probably expecting too much from me."

"Hey you..did the first thing you thought of.." Leon paused, grimacing, "can't blame you for that. Besides...if you'd didn't do anything it would've broken a bone at best."

“I suppose so.” Luis sighed, not willing to lament on how much of an idiot he was right now. “Do you think you can stand?”

“Yeah probably.” Leon looked like he wanted to say something else but didn't, and sat up grasping at one of the stone walls trying to pull himself up, Luis stood himself and very tentatively held out his hand, and Leon took it standing tentatively on his leg as if testing how much weight he could put on it. He slowly paced around, limping but not particularly terribly. 

“Yeah..i'll be fine.” Leon nodded after a moment once he realized Luis was watching him nervously. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah this is nothing. I've been shot before and thrown around after it's fine.” he waved that away with an absurd amount of casualty.

“Well...alright then.” Luis blinked but tried to take it with the nonchalant humor Leon was giving him. They both began making their way to the door, avoiding more of the traps by way of Luis checking every step. Leon was still limping but after a minute or so it was less noticeable, Luis wasn't sure if he really wasn't feeling it anymore or if he was pushing himself to keep up. Unfortunately the door was locked, Luis muttered under his breath while he tried to think of what to do while Leon tried to force the door open. 

They both heard what was unmistakably the sound of a chainsaw revving. It seemed to be coming from the makeshift shelter and Luis tried to calm his suddenly pounding heart. 

"Groovy." Leon scoffed scanning the area to try and find the perpetrator of the sound. 

"It most certainly isn't.” Luis remarked, “The only person with a chainsaw was Dr. Salvador, but I thought he was back in the village?"

"Yeah I swear to god I killed him." Leon muttered, shrugging a little. "Guess he came back, seems to be a common theme for me." 

“How much are you willing to bet he has the key to the door.” Luis sighed, drawing his gun but mostly just to calm himself. 

“I'd bet money on it.” Leon shook his head, “only one way to find out for sure though.” 

“Leon wait,” luis reached over and touched his arm before he could move too far away, “why don't i go and see, i mean i don't think you should deal with a chainsaw right now.”

“Nah i'm not letting you deal with it alone, i'm fine Luis, I fought a lot worse.” with that Leon began walking forward and Luis hesitated but followed him, intent on convincing him but not getting the chance. The ladder from the second floor was kicked down and a figure lepd down landing on their feet, a mere few arm lengths away from Leon. 

It was Dr Salvador alright, as tall as Leon and significantly stockier, multiple bullet holes through his shirt into his torso, the sack over his head bloodied and his eyes glowing bright orange. Around his neck hung what Luis was almost certain was the key out of here. He growled at the two of them and charged wildly swinging his chainsaw around, both of them ducked out of the way but Luis realized Leon was at a disadvantage, now significantly slower, and Dr. Salvador was in no mood to be merciful. 

“Aquí, Doctor,” he shot at Salvador, distracting him from Leon, bullet grazing his arm. Salvador yelled something incomprehensible over him starting the chainsaw and charging at him, Luis turning and running, hopping over one of the short walls and hearing a gunshot of Leon trying to shoot him but missing. 

He ducked, the blade of the Doctor’s tool barely missing him again. He could smell the gasoline dripping from the damaged fuel tank, he stumbled a little but kept momentum by rolling out of the way of another swing and crawling until he could get to his feet. The gunshots echoing around the room, one of them must have landed as the doctor suited loudly in pain, chagrin Luis again as if undecided on who was attacking him. Luis looked around and remembered the bear traps, figuring if he could get him caught they had a decent shot of taking him down. He looped back around, the doctor still in close pursuit and jumped another wall, narrowly missing the trap himself and falling, landing on his shoulder with a grunt.

The doctor was none so careful, following him over the wall and landing directly in the trap. Luis swore he could hear his bones break over the chainsaw. Salvador was on the ground, he dropped the chainsaw whos engine rumbled to a halt while he hollered in rage and suffering. Two bullets hit him in the chest and head and he suddenly fell still, blood pooling from his leg. 

Luis stood, putting his gun away, and looked over at Leon who's still smoking pistol was lowering to his side. He seemed on edge. 

“God you're great.” Leon smirked, shaking his head lightly. 

“It's a team effort. “ Luis deflected, not willing to take any credit at this point. “And anyways it won't matter if he gets back up.”

“Hmm…” They both walked closer to the body, looking down at the scene below them and at the old chainsaw off to the side. Leon and Luis exchanged a look that said nothing and yet a lot. Leon picked up the chainsaw and yanked the cord a couple of times, managing to get it running. Luis knew it needed to be done, and couldn't bear to look away as Leon held the Doctors head to the side with his foot and plunged the tool into his throat, blood splattering everywhere including on his arms and shirt. He wore that same blank mask. A mannequin expression of a killing machine and nothing more, as he removed the Doctors head from his body. 

“Hey doctor, Do me a favor and stay dead.” Leon muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead and tossing the old tool off to the side. Luis bent over and scooped up the key from around Salvador’s neck. 

"You know how I asked if you had a smoke when we met? Well i could really use one now." 

"No kidding. I'm half tempted myself." Leon sighed. “Lets get outta here.”

The key did in fact unlock the door,leading into the next room which ended up being a room Luis wasn't expecting. Small rectangular stones were placed into the sand lining up perfectly along the room's ground. It only took him a moment to figure out what they were and it felt as though his heart sank into his stomach.

“Where's this?” Leon frowned, looking down at the plaques embedded in the dirt, all of whom had multiple names inscribed on them, “it looks like a cemetery.”

“I think….” Luis swallowed biting his lip, “i think this is where they..were they buried the children.” his voice faltered a little.

“The children?”

“Yes..well...some of them. There were graves for the poorer kids near the village, but when las plagas outbreak happened...children can't survive with the parasite in their bodies for longer than maybe a few weeks, two months is the longest i've seen. It kills them quickly, and when so many of them were infected at once they all died around the same time. The poor children generally had a mass grave, if you saw it you probably didn't know that's what it was. There aren't any headstones or anything to mark it. Here's where they buried the kids of people who worked in the castle. Not much better but at least they have...something.” 

“Jesus christ….” Leon muttered looking away, Luis caught a glimpse of what he thought might have been tears in his eyes, but when Leon glanced at the graves again the hint of tears, if they had been there at all, were gone. 

“Luis…” Leon started, making direct and rather intense eye contact,”Y'know i said i would help you, i do want to and i wanted to the whole time but...this..i didn't realize just how fucked this all is. Or i guess it didn't really hit me until now.. No matter what i have to do, no matter how long it takes or how dangerous it is, i will do everything i can to end this shit.”

“Well..well i admire your tenacity, and convictions but that's not your mission, You don't have to do that Leon…”

“Somebody has to. Somebody has to do something for these people whose lives are ruined, for these poor kids who died, hell..somebody has to do something for you.” Leon continued with the same intensity stepping closer to him, gesturing to him. Luis was frankly speechless, instinctively flinching when he stepped closer, and didn't know how to respond. His heart felt as though it was swelling in his chest, and as though he'd been punched. He understood his anger about the other villagers and the children, he felt this as well, but he didn't understand the anger regarding himself. 

“I...i would say that they would appreciate that if they could.” he eventually managed to stammer out. “I don't...i don't think that you are wrong. I just think...maybe this is bigger than you, or us really. As much as we want to do something, what can we do?”

“Well...i have to try. Look if all i can do, besides getting Ashley, is save you, and stop Saddler, then i'll feel like i've helped someone and done something that matters.” 

“I...well i certainly...thank you.” Luis murmured looking away from him. They stood there silently looking down at the headstones as if mourning the lives lost and buried here. 

But they couldn't stand and feel sorry forever. 

They pressed on. 

As if to forgo the emotions of the last few rooms the next was more open and lit and there was a set of three empty minecarts with a rickety track leading into a dark tunnel, the left side of the cart there was a platform with a lever and some other smaller mechanisms. Below the track was a cavern, too dark for Luis to see the bottom of, and though he didn’t want to, he had an idea of what was going to happen. 

“Hm.. guess we gotta ride the cart.” Leon bit the bullet saying what they'd both realized out loud. 

“Fantastic.” Luis sighed hunching his shoulders slightly as he looked down in the chasm under the railroad track in spite of himself. 

“Hey don't worry it'll be fun.” Leon teased smiling and nudging him a little. The humor was welcome but the confirmation that he was the chicken-shit coward between the two of them not so much. 

“Somehow, i don't believe you.” Luis shook his head and sat down to hop into the minecart, Leon grasped the main lever and pulled it, managing to jump into the cart just ahead of Luis before it took off, gently rattling down the track and picking up speed as it went. Not at all Luis' idea of fun, the jostling of the cart making his stomach sort of lurch when it did. 

The carts made their way down the track, rickety and clearly unstable but at least not extremely fast, though Luis found that he was clenching his fists and his nails dug into his palms. Leon seemed much more relaxed, even as the cart seemed to pick up speed. Wisking past platforms one would use to get out of the carts and into the deeper mines. The tunnels were lit only with a handful of lanterns, dust and water dripping down on his head, but the cool air rushing at him was sort of welcome as adrenaline and tight closed off rooms had made him somewhat sweaty. 

As they began to pass a platform of some kind the cart stopped rather abruptly jerking both of them forward. Looking up Luis saw a couple ganados, if he wasn't mistaken the same few from the caves earlier, at the controls, smirking sinisterly at the two of them. Leon stood and the both of them drew guns but before they could react another switch was flipped and the lever pulled again, the carts jostling forward significantly faster and Leon lost his balance falling back on his ass in the same cart Luis was in as the ganados disappeared while the carts rattled along the track. 

“What do you think that was about?” Leon asked, having to speak decently louder than normal, Luis just shrugged genuinely having no answer for him. Evidently still concerned Leon sat up on his knees, holding onto the front of the cart and looking ahead, Luis deciding to mirror him. There was a point just up ahead were two tracks split off, one going higher and another lower. The cart jerked oddly and worryingly and picked up even more speed as it headed downward. 

That couldn't be good. 

Luis’ suspicions of that were confirmed as just after a sickening tight corridor of turns the cave opened out onto a steep hill, and a little ways off Luis saw something huge blocking the track. He couldn't exactly tell what it was but they were headed directly at it, at ridiculous speeds, and no way to stop. Leon seemed to come to the same conclusion he had. 

"Luis, were gonna have to jump out.." he called to him. 

"What?" 

"We're going way too fast, we can't stop it, just trust me ok?" Leon insisted and Luis just nodded, he guessed either way he might die and maybe Leon's idea had some merit.

Leon helped him to the front cart and grasped his hand hard as if he was trying to attach the two of them. Leon was tensed as he tried to find a good moment as the track between them and certain death was ever narrowing. With the front of the cart seconds away from collapsing into the blockade, Leon told him to jump and he simply closed his eyes and did so keeping their hands clasped tightly together as they seemed to hover in midair for quite possibly an eternity, only separating when they made contact with the ground. Luis felt the wind get knocked out of him, his already battered body protesting angrily to so much mistreatment. The loudest noise he'd ever heard of the carts clattering and smashing against the mound of debris permeated the air and echoed along the cavern walls. He lie there motionless, trying to catch his breath and comprehend what had happened all with his eyes still closed. He'd landed pretty hard on his hip but having broken a bone once as a child he had, a little bit, of the memory of what that felt like, and he was pretty sure it was alright. Maybe. 

They really were lucky, was all Luis could think when he finally opened his eyes and tried to sit up, reeling from the reality he was in. he'd managed to miss hitting the metal track along the ground due to Leon’s impeccable timing, he was sure if they'd landed on the tracks one or both of them would have broken bones. All and all, they were mostly unhurt, and had made it to the end of the mines and Luis’ chest hurt from terror. The stack of ebris looked to be mainly metal scraps, alot of them suspiciously looking like other minecarts, 

"Leon you might be insane." was the first and only thing he could think to say that didn't involve throwing himself into the other man's arms and demanding he calm his erratically beating heart. 

"Hey we're alive." Leon shrugged, gesturing outwardly, he stood slowly and then leaned over and grabbed Luis’ hand pulling him up. Both of them wincing and appearing to sort of stumble. 

“Fair enough.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Oh perhaps a bit bruised.” Luis brushed it off, the numb ache seeping across his body just as Leon said so. “Nothing I can't handle.”

“Hm we’ll see.” Leon looked doubtful at his slight limp but let it go. Not like he had room to talk. “Those bastards tried to kill us.”

“Well yes Leon they've been trying to the whole time.”

“Alright yeah but still.” Leon shrugged.

“Sure you didn't hit your head?” Luis managed a smile. 

“Shut up, c'mon.” Leon chuckled back gesturing to another hole a little way away, the two of them walking semi slowly, Luis trying to ignore the disgusting smell of metal scraps. 

The little opening they ducked under led to a small dimly lit room with a stone table with a centerpiece looking like a rotating mirror that one might use to apply makeup set on top of it but instead of a mirror there was an octagonal stone with stained glass art of a man being tortured, los illuminados symbol stabbing through his stomach as he cried out agony. An oddly fitting, if disturbing, illustration of the cult. Right behind that was a ladder presumably leading out of here. Leon picked up the stone object and looked it over frowning. 

"This might go to that lion thing outside. Man who builds this shit?" 

"Ramon and his family I suppose. If he didn't want us to get in then I suppose this was the way to do so, can't imagine how he got up there himself though.”

“Maybe his bug friend helped him out.” Leon suggested putting the stone thing in his back pocket, “hopefully we can get back where we were.” 

They both climbed the ladder, which seemed to take forever, and once they reached the top it became evident they were in the ruins again. Convenient at least but somewhat baffling based on the strange excursion they had just had. Luckily there wasn't anyone else here any longer, besides the body of the man that had assaulted Luis before, he tried not to look at him. 

Leon set the stone object into the lion's mouth and pushed the door, which gave way and placed them in front of an elevator that they entered, Leon leaning against one of the rails and sighing with his eyes closed as Luis hit the button that told them they were going up. How high he did not know, he just accepted the arbitrary direction with about as much thought as he accepted anything else.

The elevator stopped and they proceeded down a narrow hall that gave way to a massive open area. They stood on the highest platform in the room, Luis could guess there were four and there was a ladder ahead to defend from this one. Watch platform decorated with an arm chair or tables and vases about half their height and multiple paintings, a few of Saddler who's cold sneer was as unwelcome as the huge statue just off the edge of the platform. 

Very much the statue resembled Salazar in the way it was carved and dressed in stone, very unlike him in stature at maybe ten or more meters high. It was, presumably, expertly built as an art piece but it's subject matter certainly left more to be desired, than again Luis didn't know much about art at all, and maybe it wasn't meant for him to really understand or like it. They climbed down the ladder and both sort of gazed in confusion at this massive cumbersome thing. 

"So…." Leon looked it over a few extra times before turning to look at Luis. 

"If you have any questions about this I am not the man that has the answers." Luis interrupted, everytime he thought Leon was just going to accept that he didn't understand Salazar, something stranger and stupider was uncovered and it seemed he couldn't help himself. Luis didn't exactly blame him but it occurred to him he probably should have been asking more questions before himself. Like how the hell did this thing get up here, and when and why was it made.

"Guess he's got a complex." Leon half chuckled, shaking his head.

"Oh definitely, you notice he tries not to address you at ground level yes?”" Luis gestured smirking a little despite himself. 

"Why the hell does it have joints like that?"

"I believe it moves." Luis mused, the memory of it being talked about in passing coming up in his mind. "it's stone but it's also somewhat mechanical, i think anyways i remember Saddler mentioning it at one point..." 

"What? Why?" 

"That is the question isn't it." Luis shrugged. "I honestly have no idea when or how it was made, I don't know anything about it really.” 

“Well as long as it doesn't come to life i guess i can't care too much.” Leon shrugged, walking over to the pool in front of it, “More concerned with why this huge pool is here on the... eighth floor at least.” 

“No clue but i think there's a door over that way.” Luis pointed across the water to a small exit, and then leaning down and taking a moment to try and scrub the filth off his arms and face, the water cold as all hell and only doing so much to help the caked on mud and blood but it was something. 

“Awesome, and how do we get there.”

"Well the bridge is..underwater it looks like but, if you're up for a swim it's not very deep." Luis mused still crouched by the water, lamenting the inability to dry himself off. 

"Man, I just got dry." Leon shook his head. "Oh well, I was just getting too comfortable I guess." he then proceeded to step down onto the underwater platform and walk forward, Luis following suit, disliking the freezing water soaking his legs as well as his face and arms, though he assumed he would hate it more if it was warm. 

They made their way along the platform sloshing through the water as they went. There was something off putting about the silence of the room and the fact that their wet footsteps echoed around it. Luis wasn't sure if he liked this more of less than the caves, probably less somehow. 

Voices could be heard muttering from behind them, vices and a creaking sound and Luis turned, not to see cultists, but instead to see the statues eyes glowing bright orange and something fearfully amiss about it. 

The statue, evidently, did in fact move.

It begane rumbling forward, slowly moving each of it's components to force the massive body forward. In two steps it had made it to the water and it wasn't stopping. Hell it seemed to be picking up momentum and though it was merely a statue he couldn't help but think it was coming at them maliciously. 

"Oh for fucks sake." Leon grabbed his arm and they both tried running, or at least getting as much distance between them and the statue who's footsteps were eerily shaking the ground beneath them. They made it to the platform on the other end and Leon, without really trying the knob first, managed to ram his shoulder through the door and break it open after a couple of attempts. The two of them ran out through the door and kept moving across a long, thin bridge towards a second cylindrical spire, much taller than the first one. They slowed down about halfway through the bridge, surely it wouldn't catch up with them, Luis was out of breath and Leon was limping more noticeably, so he certainly hoped it couldn't catch up at least. 

Unfortunately they were wrong. 

The statue broke through the wall of the tower as though it were made of paper, shattering off parts of it's face and the hat but this was not enough to deter it. The two of them continued running and made it ninety percent across the bridge before they felt the weight of this huge statue cause said bridge to begin to crumble.

It fell collapsing forward and shattering both itself and the bridge underneath it. A huge piece of the bridge cracking under their feet and splitting off as everything bagan caving in and chunks began falling into the water below. Luis stumbled and Leon grabbed him and pulled him close to the door while the piece of bridge he had just been standing on crumbled. The statue rolled off of the remains of the bridge and fell, a huge splash could be heard as it hit the lake below. 

The bridge was basically nothing at this point. The small platform in front of them was almost all that remained. Luis and Leon sat there watching the last little bit of stone drop, Luis realizing Leon had him in a sort of hug with one arm around his shoulders and the other very lightly placed on his chest protectively. 

“Shit…” Leon muttered, “well we’re not going back that way huh?”

“No, I suppose not.” Luis sighed, unintentionally feeling a little wistful when Leon pulled away from him and looked up at the tower.

"Well..lets hope Salazar is in here" he gestured and walked forward setting his hand on the door. Luis nodded looking up at the spire as it loomed over the two of them, his stomach twisted in knots but he was resolute in the fact that they had to get up there. 

He certainly hoped Ashley was still alright.


End file.
